


The Royal True Romance

by Darkmuseau



Category: The Royal Romance (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:20:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 29,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23838250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkmuseau/pseuds/Darkmuseau
Summary: What if The Royal Romance Chapter 1 went a different way?
Relationships: Maxwell Beaumont/Main Character (The Royal Romance), Olivia Nevrakis/Drake Walker
Comments: 23
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Light and fluffy. Always happy to see happy Maxwell.

The first thing Riley noticed about Maxwell was his irresistible arrogance. How could she not? He called her “waitress” and asked for an off-menu item without even saying please. “Oh boy,” she thought. Riley happened to enjoy arrogance in a man. She found arrogance—when done well—to be confident and sexy. And Maxwell was, but mostly he was just a hot mess.

His hair was disheveled, his cheeks were flushed, his eyes bright and full of mischief. “I could get into a lot of trouble with you,” she thought, as her hand inadvertently touched his when handing him a beer. What made it completely unbearable was the fact that he winked at her when this happened. “You know it too, don’t you,” she thought as she smiled at him.

It was a bachelor party—Maxwell, and his three friends. Drake, who might as well be named Whiskey Sourpuss, Tariq, who seemed to be the fourth wheel in the group, and the sorta-groom and definite star of the show, Prince Liam. It wasn’t as if she had never heard of the Crown Prince of Cordonia before; she recognized him immediately, but meeting him up close was an experience. The man exuded wealth, good grace, and polo. He was magnanimous, intelligent, and never boring. Riley, if she wanted to, could see herself being able to love Liam quite easily. 

Maxwell, however, was infinitely more interesting and mysterious. Besides arrogance, another turn-on for Riley was secret layers, and Maxwell was brimming with them. She could tell.

She watched him. He always had to be funny, and always had to be the person having the most amount of fun for the least amount of effort. “Playing the long game, huh,” she thought, watching Maxwell animatedly tell a funny story to the group. “I don’t know what your deal is, funny guy,” she caught herself thinking, “but I want in, on the ground floor.”

All four men were easy to talk to, and happy to talk to Riley. No one wanted the night to end, and it didn’t. Riley got asked by the group to take them to a second location, only on the basis of being so fun. She changed into her street clothes, her bright green dress and heels, before meeting the group in front of the bar.

And of course Maxwell said something stupid and the group admonished him. It wasn’t even stupid so much as it just sort of fell out of his mouth when Riley appeared. It was barely even a sentence: “The waitress is HOT!” It was said too fast and too loud and the three other men rushed to beat each other to correct Maxwell first. And then he was mortified, she could tell. “I don’t think he even realized he said it,” Riley thought to herself. 

She took them to her cove. It was hardly “her” cove but she had thought of it for so long as hers that it was. She came here on lunch breaks, when anxiety was starting to press its way into her chest. It was a calming place. She liked sitting by the water and raking her fingers across the sand, pretending it was her very own large-scale zen garden. 

It was a smash hit. The four men acted like little boys and wanted to splash each other and run in and out of the water in their bare feet. Prince Liam pulled her aside at his first opportunity to ask about seeing the Statue of Liberty, too, which she quickly declined. It was so weird—she was their waitress at the bar, and now they were all at her cove and a member of Cordonian royalty was asking to see a national monument as if she was their private tour guide for the evening. She sat down in the sand quietly for a minute, trying to keep cheerful and not feel too put-upon. Still, this was such a weird situation to find herself in—the only woman in a group with four strange men, all pretty obviously wanting her—was she a secretary straight out of Mad Men?! Had they never seen a human woman before tonight at the bar? 

“Hey,” Maxwell said as he plopped down next to Riley, “Thanks for taking us here.”

“Oh, sure, it’s nothing,” Riley said modestly, trying to concentrate on smoothing out her facial features in order to adequately project happiness.

“I know it isn’t,” Maxwell said. Riley looked up at him, but failed to catch his eye. He was focused on the sand slipping through his fingers. “This is your spot, isn’t it? It’s not too far from the restaurant. You didn’t have to take us somewhere and share this with us, but you did. You could have easily just brought us to some trendy nightclub and none of us would have been the wiser. Especially me.”

Riley wanted to say something but had no idea what. 

“So...Riley, right?” Maxwell looked up, straight into her eyes.

“Yep! Thanks for remembering,” Riley said. “It has a lot more significance to me than the last name you called me.” She smiled at this ridiculous, gorgeous man.

Maxwell turned red, looked down and self consciously giggled. “Riley, I...” but then his smile disappeared and he looked up again with a serious expression. “Forgive me. I misspoke.”

His eyes said things his mouth couldn’t, Riley realized. 

“Consider it water under the bridge. You seem like a good guy,” Riley said with a smile.

Maxwell noticeably relaxed. “So what sorts of things do you like to do, when you come here for a break?”

“Well,” Riley started, and thought, what could she say? She could lie and say she brought library books. Or maybe played some kind of game on her iPhone. She could say anything. Why did she want to suddenly lie?

Maxwell was patiently waiting for her answer.

“Fuck it,” she thought, and told him.

It suddenly became clear to Riley why she had wanted to lie. On some inner level inside of herself, Riley knew this was going to happen. His eyes would light up and he would smile and get super into it. They would become rakes together, side by side, taking the beach by storm. They were superheroes. They were crabs. It all happened in the span of about three minutes and at the end Riley sat on the sand and laughed harder than she had in a year.

And she looked at Maxwell, and he was sitting right next to her smiling and laughing away. 

She had wanted to lie so badly, because she knew once she found out she was right (and she was), there was no turning back. It wasn’t just a matter of this guy being a hot mess tripping over himself. Maxwell was fun...he was so much fun, in such an exciting way. He exuded positivity, wit, and class. She LIKED him- there was no denying it now, at least to herself.

Riley pushed it down and the party broke up and she went home. She went to bed and had a hard time falling asleep. She kept turning the night over in her mind and replaying the moment he smiled at her, sitting in the sand. It had been a silly experience that had breezed into her life and breezed out.

The next morning she opened the front door to her apartment’s lobby and Maxwell stood there with a smile. She could have screamed, but didn’t. “Oh hello, second best sand raker in New York!” she said with a smile. “Jesus, he’s even better looking than last night,” she thought.

“Hello again, first best sand raker in New York! I’m glad I caught you,” Maxwell said, and he did look glad, but he was also very sweaty, Riley suddenly realized. “I had an idea, and I wanted to see if you might be interested?” His voice went up an octave on the last syllable of the word “interested,” Riley noticed.

“Hit me with it!” Riley said with a giant grin.

Maxwell noticeably relaxed and returned the smile. 

Then Riley got to hear, for the first time in her life, about a whole bunch of bullshit.

“I’m sorry,” Riley broke in at one point, “a competition?!”

Maxwell nodded. “It’s a royal tradition. But it would help my family out if we can sponsor you.”

“Family, huh?” Riley looked Maxwell over. “Cmere. Let’s go up to my place for a minute.”

Riley led Maxwell to her apartment and got to hear more. The stuff about his family, about the Beaumonts, wasn’t bullshit. Bertrand sounded intense. There were some holes, though. Riley unlocked the door and the two stepped inside and she closed the door behind Maxwell. Riley realized how close she stood next to him, this man she couldn’t get to sleep over last night. 

“Are both your parents deceased?” Riley asked.

“Well, no,” Maxwell said quietly. “My mother died when I was quite young. Not too many people at all know this outside of myself and Bertrand, but our father is in a coma and isn’t expected to recover.”

“I’m so sorry,” Riley said. “Thank you for telling me that, that couldn’t have been easy.”

“It’s easy to talk to you, when we’re alone together,” Maxwell said, almost a whisper. His eyes lit up and Riley drank him in. 

“I...want you to come with me. My plane leaves very soon and I think you have an honest shot at this.” Maxwell looked so earnest and happy. It hurt Riley’s heart, and she braced herself for what she had to say next.

“I’ll go with you,” Riley said slowly, deliberately. “But not for this competition. Not for Liam.”

“What—“

“I’ll go with you, for you.”

“For me?” Maxwell stood silent and still.

“I really like you, Maxwell,” Riley said. “I don’t like anyone else. Just you. I couldn’t go to Cordonia and pretend to like anyone else because you are the only person I’m interested in. You deserve total honesty.”

“You don’t like Liam, or Drake? Or Tariq?”

“No,” Riley quietly said, looking down at her feet, nervous. She tried to breathe. She breathed in. She breathed out. She looked up at Maxwell. He was staring intensely into her eyes.

“I just—“ he started, then stopped, and started again. “Riley...”

Then he sighed and gave up, and kissed her. Maxwell kissed Riley softly and deeply, and Riley kissed him back. They stopped to catch their breath and leaned into each other. 

“Come with me,” Maxwell breathed. “Please. I need you.”

Her bag was packed in five minutes’ time.


	2. Warm Cordonian Welcome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this continued AU timeline, Maxwell brings Riley to Cordonia on her own terms.

Riley was on a private plane, sitting next to Maxwell. Drake, aka Whiskey Sourpuss, sat across from them. He kept staring.

“What’s going on with you two?” Drake asked Riley and Maxwell together, point-blank.

Riley and Maxwell stared wordlessly at each other and seemed to blush at the exact same moment. Riley wanted to reach for him, to feel his arms around her, but held herself back. 

“Stop.” Drake seemed to suddenly bark out of nowhere. “Okay. I get it. So you aren’t competing.”

“No, I’m not,” Riley said.

“What a relief,” Drake said, seeming to sigh. “I really mean that. Being at court can get extremely snippy and hollow. And to have your first experience at court be in the competition—I mean, can you imagine!”

“I can’t. But I don’t know what my place is going to be when we get there if I’m not competing. Maybe Bertrand will just make me take a plane home. I’m sorry I can’t represent House Beaumont.” Riley looked sincerely at Maxwell. “I like hearing about your house, about its history, and about your family.” Riley was aware that Drake sat watching her but to Riley, the only person who existed with her flying through the air was Maxwell. 

“We’ll find a place for you,” Maxwell said. “If Bertrand becomes difficult and makes you leave, I’m coming with you.” Once again it was as if no one in the entire universe existed. 

As Maxwell and Riley blushed together again, Drake looked thoughtful and said, “Hell, if Bertrand gives you hell I’ll back you up myself, Beaumont.”

Maxwell looked suddenly like a deer in headlights at Drake, then looked down again. “Thanks, Drake,” he managed to say quietly.

Riley spent most of the plane ride to Cordonia getting to know Maxwell. Things were going a little slow until she managed to say the word “movie,” then they hurried up quite a bit. It was so nice spending time with Maxwell and finding out more about him. After a long, spirited debate, a movie was settled on, and Riley found herself holding Maxwell’s hand as the movie began. 

Riley had chosen The Royal Tenenbaums—it was Drake’s copy of the film. Maxwell had never seen the film.

“Bertrand is a total snob about movies,” Drake said to Riley. “He’s a good guy, Maxwell, but he really gives you a hard time. Maxwell is pretty well versed in the classics but in terms of independent contemporary films he needs to play catch-up.”

“Have you ever seen Little Miss Sunshine?” Riley asked Maxwell.

“No,” said Maxwell, looking at her warmly.

“How about Sunshine Cleaning?”

“No—is that the sequel? Are those two films related at all? How many Sunshine movies are there in the franchise?” Maxwell started to get excited.

“I hate to burst your bubble but you did not just stumble into the independent movie equivalent of the Fast and the Furious.”

“Too Sunshine, Too Furious.” Maxwell smiled.

“Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Sunshine,” Riley said. 

“Hey clowns, be quiet, the movie’s starting,” said Drake. 

“I don’t know if you know about this, Drake,” Riley smiled, “but there is such a thing as a pause button.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re two of a kind. I know exactly how this is going to end up. Maxwell is like a running Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode when we watch movies. I can see now that I have two robots instead of one,” Drake grumbled.

“I call Servo!” Maxwell and Riley both blurted out at the same time. They looked at each other in shock, unexpectedly, then burst into gales of laughter. After they were able to stop laughing, Maxwell conceded, “I suppose I could be Crow.”

“So am I Mike or Joel?” Drake asked the two of them.

“Mike!” Maxwell and Riley both said at the same time. Riley found her heart felt extremely light and happy.

“Ugh,” said Drake. “Everybody knows Joel’s better.”

Maxwell and Riley took great umbrage, and Drake returned to his seat on the plane, thoroughly booed down. The movie began.

“Oh I love this.” Maxwell said right away and Riley felt so happy she wanted to burst. “I love this format, that it’s a book, it’s a story.”

“If you like that kind of thing, I think our next film should be Whisper of the Heart,” Riley said. She took Maxwell’s hand and held it with both her hands. 

Maxwell looked at Riley and the light in his eyes could power a small town. “Sold,” he said.

As much was made about Maxwell talking during movies, Maxwell and Riley were mostly quiet, holding hands the entire length of the film, laughing together, and each completely blissed out and happy to be near the other. 

The movie ended.

“I really enjoyed that film,” Maxwell said to Riley, looking straight into her eyes. “My only thought is, ‘Why isn’t there more of it?’”

“That’s how I feel whenever I watch that too, like, ‘What happens next?’” Riley said.

“Anything is possible, I suppose,” Maxwell breathed.

Time hurried along, and the plane landed in Cordonia. Tariq parted ways with the group, who made their way to the Beaumont Estate together. 

Riley was nervous to speak to Bertrand. She knew that she wasn’t what he was expecting, and she didn’t want him to be angry at her. She told Maxwell she wanted to speak to Bertrand first, alone. She had to at least try.

Bertrand sat at his desk with his head in his hand quietly after listening to Riley speak. “Let me make sure I have the facts correct,” Bertrand finally said. “My brother asked you to come to Cordonia to compete for Prince Liam’s hand.”

“Yes.”

“You told him you wouldn’t compete,” Bertrand took a breath. “And also that you liked him.”

“Yes.”

Bertrand raised his eyebrows at Riley, “Is that true, by the way?”

“Very much.”

Bertrand stared silently at Riley for a few moments. He looked as if he was trying to size her up.

Finally, he said, “And Maxwell asked you to come with him anyway. Even though you aren’t competing. For what purpose?”

“He...didn’t say.” Riley said quietly. “I think it was a spur of the moment decision on both ends.”

“Usually,” Bertrand said, “it’s a spur of the moment decision on one end only, which is his, so this is a new development. Do you know anything of estate management, Miss Riley?”

“Not formally,” Riley admitted. “I’m willing to help House Beaumont in a real way, though. I just don’t know what way that is, yet.”

“I can appreciate your enthusiasm and willingness to learn,” Bertrand sighed, “just as I am sure you can appreciate the difficult position my brother has put the both of us in. This is a busy, busy time for our house. We do need help, as long as you are willing to put the work in.”

“Of course.”

Bertrand sized her up again. “It’s not the end of the world that you aren’t going to be in the competition. We have another option we can use, but Maxwell was trying quite desperately to avoid it.”

“Why?”

“Well,” Bertrand said. “Maxwell and I have a third cousin, twice removed, named Whitney Beaumont. Whitney stayed with us for a summer when Maxwell, Liam, and Drake were seniors in high school. The arguments this girl inspired between Liam and Drake were...loud. And long. It was a loud, long summer, and it almost cost the two of them their friendship.”

“No wonder Maxwell didn’t want Whitney to return,” Riley said. “That sounds serious.”

“It was,” Bertrand said. “But years have passed and Liam and Drake are either going to have to let it go or face off about it, I’m afraid. House Beaumont has run out of options.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Bertrand looked at his desk for a moment, then looked at Riley with a soft expression. “Whitney will be ready to go at a moment’s notice and has prepared for life at court for years. If you had chosen to compete, we’d be playing catch-up with you every spare moment.”

“I appreciate how kind you are being about this,” Riley said. “I know this is very unexpected.”

“It is,” Bertrand admitted. “And I cannot say that I am not annoyed with Maxwell and his timing. But you have his best interests in mind, as far as I can tell, and I think you have made an excellent decision. I’m looking forward to seeing what you can contribute to House Beaumont.” 

Riley nodded and left Bertrand’s study. “My turn,” said Maxwell as she passed him in the hall. “How’d it go for you?”

“I don’t want to jinx myself but I think okay?” Riley said.

“Okay is good!” Maxwell smiled, then disappeared into Bertrand’s study. He came out ten minutes later. “Not so bad!” He smiled at Riley, but his eyes looked a little tired. “Hey, I want to show you something.”

Maxwell led Riley inside a bedroom and closed the door. Riley looked around. The bed had a plush comforter with squids on it. Two of the pillows were squids. There was a private connected bathroom that also had a similar theme. “This is your room!” Riley said. 

“It is!” Maxwell smiled. “What gave it away?”

“I think the squid boom box over there. Who else would have something so freaking cool, Maxwell?! How do you have a squid boom box?!” Riley went up and touched it. It was turquoise and the detail work on the tentacles was impressive. 

“I know a place in Lythikos. Custom job, I really love that thing.” Maxwell looked so supremely happy. Riley walked over to him and his happiness seemed to amplify with every step she took. 

“I’m so happy I’m here,” Riley said. “I really liked you the moment I met you. And the more I get to know you, the more I like about you. There is so, so much to like about you.”

“I, um,” Maxwell said slowly, “feel exactly the same way.”

Riley and Maxwell stared at each other, silently smiling. Then Maxwell continued. 

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you after the party ended. Had a hard time getting to sleep. I kept thinking I’d never see you again and it drove me fucking crazy. Like how fair is that? I meet you, and like you, like immediately have this visceral reaction and connection to you and then I’m supposed to just go home and never see you again, ever?”

Maxwell looked so sad all of a sudden. 

“I’m not a huge fan of the competition myself. It’s hokey, and old-fashioned, and I’m being diplomatic when I really want to say it’s outdated and unnecessary. I mean, Drake and I don’t envy Liam. He has to just make a huge decision in a big hurry on a national platform.” He looked down and paused, then looked up very sadly and earnestly at Riley. “Riley, I’m so sorry I asked you to compete in that thing.”

“It’s ok—“

“No—I’m sorry—it isn’t. I have to say this. This isn’t just Bertrand saying this too—although he agreed with me—I’ve been thinking about this since we kissed. The entire only reason I asked you to compete is because I like you. For the record I think you’d have made a wonderful queen if you truly wanted that for yourself— but I’m so sorry I asked you to compete. It wasn’t fair to you. I want to thank you for having the good sense to say no and tell me you like me.”

“I appreciate you saying that,” Riley said. “For the record the thought flashed through my mind that I might say yes just so I could be near you, but it felt like torture to think about competing for your friend while secretly wanting you.”

Maxwell’s eyes seemed to glow as he looked at Riley. “That would have sucked so much.”

“Like, can you imagine? When would we tell each other how we felt?!” Riley said.

“It would have taken forever. I think...” Maxwell looked very serious. “I think it would have had to be you saying something. I think once everything started I’d feel too weird to say anything myself and mess things up for the house or for you or Liam.”

“I mean...I would’ve...eventually,” Riley said. “I’d really have to work the courage up myself to do it though. All of this is new to me already—Cordonia—and then to be competing—“

“Ohmygod I know,” Maxwell took Riley’s hands with his. “Just, I’m sorry, and I’m so, so glad it’s this way instead.”

“Me too.” Riley said with a small smile.

“So besides all of those other reasons we just said for why it would have sucked if you had said yes,” Maxwell said, “Well...”

Suddenly Maxwell was quiet and seemed to be shyly looking at his feet.

The sight of it made something stir in Riley’s heart and she reached up and kissed him, feeling his lips immediately press back onto hers and Maxwell leaning his body into hers. After the kiss ended Maxwell looked into Riley’s eyes, their noses touching.

“Well, we would have had to have separate rooms, for decency’s sake. We never could have...shared a room or had...sleepovers.” Maxwell seemed to be dancing around what he really, truly wanted to say. He also seemed to be out of breath, suddenly.

“Do you want to share your room with me, Maxwell?” Riley looked up into Maxwell’s eyes as he stood breathing deeply. He couldn’t seem to manage to speak but nodded his head, then pressed his lips to Riley’s and hungrily kissed her. 

“I wanted to do that the entire plane ride,” he whispered. 

The two stood, staring into each other’s eyes, holding each other quietly, happily.

“Do we need to be anywhere?” Riley finally asked Maxwell. “Do we need to be doing anything?”

“For just a few hours we have nothing to do. Then we should make an appearance at the Masquerade ball together. You can meet my cousin Whitney! She’s a lot of fun. But right now it’s just me and you, and whatever we want to do for a little chunk of time here.” He cupped the left side of Riley’s face with his right hand and kissed her again.

“Would it be weird to say...dance off?” Riley hopefully gazed into Maxwell’s eyes, which instantly lit up, and his mouth became a warm, wonderful beaming smile. “Dance off.” he whispered to Riley. He went over to the squid boom box and loaded his phone into the docking station and selected a song. The music started. He got into position. More than that, Riley immediately noticed, Maxwell got into CHARACTER. This was Dance Maxwell, which was far different than Regular Maxwell. This was his soul, through his body. Riley thought she was ready. She wasn’t.

At seventeen, I started to starve myself  
I thought that love was a kind of emptiness  
And at least I understood then the hunger I felt  
And I didn't have to call it loneliness

We all have a hunger  
We all have a hunger  
We all have a hunger  
We all have a hunger

Tell me what you need, oh, you look so free  
The way you use your body, baby, come on and work it for me  
Don't let it get you down, you're the best thing I've seen  
We never found the answer but we knew one thing

We all have a hunger (we all have a hunger)  
We all have a hunger (we all have a hunger)  
We all have a hunger (we all have a hunger)  
We all have a hunger (we all have a hunger)  
And it's Friday night and it's kicking in  
And I can't dress, they're gonna crucify me  
Oh, but you and all your vibrant youth  
How could anything bad ever happen to you?  
You make a fool of death with your beauty, and for a moment  
I thought that love was in the drugs  
But the more I took, the more it took away  
And I could never get enough  
I thought that love was on the stage  
You give yourself to strangers  
You don't have to be afraid  
And then it tries to find a home with people, oh, and I'm alone  
Picking it apart and staring at your phone  
We all have a hunger  
We all have a hunger  
We all have a hunger  
We all have a hunger  
Tell me what you need, oh, you look so free  
The way you use your body, baby, come on and work it for me  
Don't let it get you down, you're the best thing I've seen  
We never found the answer but we knew one thing  
We all have a hunger (we all have a hunger)  
We all have a hunger (we all have a hunger)  
We all have a hunger (we all have a hunger)  
We all have a hunger (we all have a hunger)  
And it's Friday night and it's kicking in  
And I can't dress, they're gonna crucify me  
Oh, you and all your vibrant youth  
How could anything bad ever happen to you?  
You make a fool of death with your beauty, and for a moment  
I forget to worry

He ended his dance with his right foot underneath him, his left leg in a kneeling position, and his right arm outstretched toward Riley in joy, fingers outstretched. His eyes lit up, and he smiled at her. “Your turn,” he said.


	3. Dance Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The private dance-off between Riley and Maxwell continues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I’ve been putting Maxwell through the paces in some of these stories but there was a line I wrote in this one that made me cry when I wrote it. I swear, I want to see Maxwell happy, I’m sorry for all this angst but I’m glad it feels true to him and the past. 
> 
> The song featured in this chapter is by the band Creeper. The title of the song is the first word of the song.

Riley clapped. She seriously clapped. She even heard herself screaming, “Wooooooooo!” embarrassingly loudly. Jesus fucking Christ, she thought, how could she be in love with him already? How could this be possible? 

His eyes lit up like the 4th of July. She wondered briefly about the 4th of July in Cordonia. She guess she’d eventually have to ask. Not now. There was always later.

Now was this moment and this man smiling at her like the sun. “Thank you, I appreciate the applause, in fact, I live for it,” he smiled and stood up and kissed her again. “I live for that now, too,” he said in a whisper.

“You live for kissing me the way you do applause, Maxwell?” She didn’t know it, but when Maxwell looked into her eyes they lit up like American fireworks on July 4th. 

“Too much?” he whispered to her, his heart silently skipping a beat.

“No,” Riley said, looking straight into his eyes. He suddenly realized a huge cashflow opportunity for House Beaumont only to himself. Effective immediately, he thought, no more spas—at least, none alone. No more massages unless they were couples’. Especially—ESPECIALLY—no more nights out alone. There was no need. There was no need for any of it any longer because she had said no just now. He knew what it meant. He stood completely still, as if in the presence of a unicorn. If he were a cardiologist, he silently pondered, he believed he’d have looked into his heart just now and seen years of stress subtracted instantly, a miracle cure, Riley’s love. How the fuck was this possible? He knew her, even accounting for time changes and jet lag, still for less than a day at this point. There were still a few hours left and then it was official, he also thought, but they had both separately (ohmygosh!) been asleep for a lot of that time too so how did THAT factor in, and—

“Hey, Maxwell,” Riley said. Thank goodness, he thought. “Didn’t you say something about my turn?”

DEAR GOD YES. Keep it cool, he thought to himself. Just say something effortlessly charming.

“Skittitty skat ska ska scuba, yeah!”

That wasn’t it. Thanks, brain, he sarcastically thought.

Riley thankfully, mercifully, didn’t seem to notice the skittitty skat ska ska, or the scuba, but did pick up on the yeah. She loaded her phone up into the docking station of the squid boom box, giving the turquoise tentacles an affectionate pat, and queued up the song. “This one reminds me of you,” she said with a smile. 

“Oh boy I hope it isn’t My Stupid Mouth!” he watched it as it came out of his mouth, like an IDIOT, and let it. Why had he said that. Dear Lord. Dear fucking Lord.

“No, no,” Riley said. “This one just makes me happy like you do.”

That sounded promising.

How could she know?

How could she have known? He never told her. It didn’t come up yet.

He got destroyed by the first word of the song.

Annabelle  
We're both going to hell  
You're gonna love the clientele  
Cheap rent and the climate's swell  
Annabelle  
I've been drunk since half-past twelve  
Don't bring me down  
Don't bring me down

The world, it seems  
To be ending constantly  
Between the smoke and drink and getting high  
I'd shed a tear if I could find the time, oh

Ah-ah-ah...  
God can't save us!  
Ah-ah-ah...  
So let's live like sinners  
Commiserations to your mum and your dad  
My reassurances it's not that bad  
Ah-ah-ah...  
You gotta live a little  
When the world just wants you sad

Annabelle  
Where the forbidden dwell  
Come lay me down  
Come lay me down

The world, it seems  
To be ending constantly  
Between the smoke and drink and getting high  
I'd shed a tear if I could find the time, oh

Ah-ah-ah...  
God can't save us!  
Ah-ah-ah...  
So let's live like sinners  
Commiserations to your mum and your dad  
My reassurances it's not that bad  
Ah-ah-ah...  
You gotta live a little  
When the world just wants you sad

The heavens are open  
The angels descending  
God please bless you, undress you  
And this unhappy ending  
The underworld kids  
Of the choir will sing  
Hallelujah!  
God has left the building

Ah-ah-ah...  
God can't save us!  
Ah-ah-ah...  
So let's live like sinners  
Commiserations to your mum and your dad  
My reassurances it's not that bad  
Ah-ah-ah...  
You gotta live a little  
When the world just wants you sad

Riley was an excellent dancer because she was a loose dancer and, like him, he noticed, brave in his motion choices, even in his mistakes. 

This wasn’t a mistake at all. He knew from the first chords of the song. It was a truly beautiful choice and it did remind him of himself in the best possible ways, the ones that felt like a memory of a dream at this point. The memories of her, and her presence, and the warmth of her love. He knew he had buried it all when they buried her and felt like he was in the presence suddenly of both a unicorn and a phoenix. How was it possible that feelings like this inside of him could ever come alive again? The lightness, the understanding. He knew if he tore his shirt open right now and told her everything she’d be super into it, no question. This was it, this was divine intervention, this was manifest destiny. Every fucking moment, every success and failure, every single secret agony had led him here. It was arrogant to determine what was “worth” it-he could never know other paths his life had taken, he knew. But standing here now in this moment, in front of this woman he knew he loved fiercely—he knew he hadn’t felt so alive or happy in years, not since the day he left the cherry blossoms on her freshly dug grave in the cemetery while his father frowned and his brother told him to come along.

He had to tell her, but he had to be cool. No scuba. Yeah. 

Deep breath.

“Annabelle was my mom’s name,” he said. “And I love that fucking song. Thank you for introducing it to me. That was—“ he sputtered a little, in spite of himself. “Riley that was fucking awesome.” He knew he was crying and couldn’t hide it at this point. He knew she didn’t care in the way that she wouldn’t ever harshly judge him. He knew he was safe with her. He knew all of that before she started walking over to him and hugged him. The next song played. It was Midnight City. Neither of them let go.

“I love this one,” Maxwell whispered.

“I love this one too,” Riley whispered back. They stood there, silently swaying in each other’s arms, silently smiling into each other’s top right shoulders.


	4. An Inkling that this is for real

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can’t be the Royal Romance without classic Book 1 Maxwell shenanigans!

“So the squids,” Maxwell heard the angel of his life say to him as he held her in his arms, still gently swaying to the song. The city is my church, he thought quietly along with the melody.

“House sigil. ‘The Depths Remember’ is our House Motto.” Maxwell, graceful as he could be in the moment, retrieved a handkerchief from his pocket and fixed himself up expertly.

“I like that,” Riley said against his right shoulder. “It’s kind of spooky. It’s cool.”

“It wasn’t always the motto,” Maxwell said. “They can change with the reign, or with the times. A long time ago it used to be ‘Beaumonts stand true.’”

“I like that too!” Riley said, lifting her head to look him in the eyes. “I think I actually like that better. The squid stuff is fun and especially for theming? I mean, wow. But that one is pretty classic.”

“I think so too,” Maxwell said. “But it is fun to lean into the squid theming. And there are a ton of squid traditions in our House that are pretty fun,” he smiled, thinking of a few he’d like to share with her someday. 

“Squid traditions!” Riley laughed. “You are kraken me up, Maxwell.”

Maxwell kissed her deeply and with feeling. “Riley Brooks, you are ink-redible.”

“Aww,” she said, pressing her forehead to his. “I was just squiddin’ around.” 

He looked deeply into her eyes. “No one makes me laugh as easily as you do, Riley. It usually takes a lot more...like...ten...tickles!!!” He ran his hands up and down her sides, gently letting her fingers tickle her without being overwhelming. She laughed immediately and he laughed too. This was bliss, he thought. 

“So you said your cousin was fun?” Riley said. “What should I know about her, before we meet?”

“Good question. She likes to party. She’s pretty much the female version of me, which also kind of sounds like you a little, although you’re more the American female Maxwell and Whitney is the Cordonian female Maxwell.”

“Ah, I see how it is, Maxwell,” Riley said with a smile. “We’re all just different versions of you, each revolving around you like planets. This is your universe and we all just reflect back onto Maxwell Prime.”

“You just came up with that right now? Not bad, seriously,” he said, a little stunned. “Never stop keeping me humble, girl. Christ, I’m so crazy about you.”

Their lips touched and it felt like lightning hit the estate. 

“I just mean—“ Riley managed in between kisses, “we aren’t Barbies or anything, you know.”

“No, of course not, you’re right, I—OH SHIT WE HAVE TO GET YOU TO THE SALON RIGHT NOW OH MY GOD RILEY I’M SORRY.”

Riley laughed so hard.

“I’m serious. I just looked at the time. We have to make an appearance at the Masquerade at the Palace at some point this evening and we both need to be Royal-ready. We need to move.”

The two hustled out of his room and down the hallway, each first retrieving their phones and placing them back in their pockets. 

“What the heck happened to we have a few hours?”

“I was wrong and also extremely optimistic,” Maxwell said, “and time management is not a super strong skill of mine?”

“Good thing you aren’t getting me ready for real then, right?”

“No joking,” Maxwell said. “Mostly though I was just kind of hoping we had enough time to be alone together right now because I wanted that more than I wanted anything else.”

“Same here,” Riley said to him. They shared a smile and stepped into the boutique together.


	5. Dress you up in my love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maxwell and Riley get ready for the Masquerade Ball in the only way they know how: like two clowns falling in love.

“This isn’t usually how I prepare for balls,” Maxwell called out to Riley from his dressing room stall in the boutique. “but I like it.”

“This is my first ball,” Riley said, busy in her changing room. “Unless we’re counting the plastic purple one my mom got me at K-Mart when I was little.”

“Well we should definitely count that one,” Maxwell said judiciously. “In fact, we could get Liam to put a new ball on the seasonal roster in your honor, ‘Riley’s Plastic Purple K-Mart Ball.’ It’s no ‘Homecoming,’ I admit, but it does have its charms.” 

“Maybe—“ Riley said, “Maybe the suggested attire of Riley’s Ball is purple and plastic balls from K-Mart?”

“Of course!” Maxwell laughed aloud. “Everyone is really going to go for that. It’s tradition!”

“Tradition we just made up!”

“All traditions are made up, Riley! That’s how they start!” He stepped out of his dressing room stall with a flourish and was disappointed to see he was the first out. “No fair,” he said with a smile. “I want to see how good you clean up already.”

To his absolute delight, the changing room door opened a crack and Riley stuck her head and bare neck out just to talk to him a little more. He smiled.

“Listen, Maxwell,” she said with a smile, but a “I should concentrate on this now” smile. Then she saw him all dressed up. “Well lookie here,” she said in a captivating song-song voice.

“Yeah, I know I clean up good. I want to see you, though.”

“I don’t have a lot to work with here. I am literally putting a fancy outfit together at a moment’s notice and you are rushing me to get it done faster?”

“Well,” he said, and then had to think a little faster. She did have a point. “Well I want to see what you come up with already!”

“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Riley countered in her most haughty tone.

“You’re gonna dress up like the city of Rome in there?” Maxwell charged over to the dressing room with a big smile on his face to seemingly storm it. Riley knew what he was up to and laughed and promptly shut the door in his face, which made them both laugh harder. He found a chair. He had better be patient.

Maxwell sat down and immediately forgot his just-declared resolution of patience. He started patting his knees and absently humming. That lasted for about thirty seconds. Then he completely lost his mind and started clapping and chanting, as one does, in the middle of the Ramsford salon. 

“WE! WANT! RILEY! WE! WANT! RILEY!” 

Suddenly another door in the salon quickly opened and another woman quickly scurried out of the salon.

Riley stuck her neck out again. “What the heck? Were we not the only ones in here?!” She looked on the verge of a laughing fit.

Maxwell just nodded, already silently laughing. 

“We gotta get out of here,” Riley said in between laughs and snorts. She stuck her neck back in and closed the door. 

This time, for fear of Bertrand charging in to storm the dressing room, he actually was patient, and quiet. It didn’t take long.

Riley opened the door to her changing room and stepped out. 

She only had a limited amount of time to work with, and only the gowns that were just in front of her, and those in her size and the best kind of style for her body type.

And yet...

And yet he could have sworn that this dress had been custom made for her. But maybe that was because of all the love in his eyes.

Not many women could pull off a strapless mermaid fishtail dress so effortlessly. The dress was navy blue with dark green detailing. He looked into her face and saw the navy blue mask staring at him. The crystal pin of the actual animal on the right side of the mask was gorgeous in its detailing, but the best part, he had to admit, was the two stylized peacock feathers just to the left of the crystal peacock pin.

“Did I do okay?” her eyes looked so earnest. His heart broke just a little, just because of how perfect it was.

“Riley, I couldn’t find a better dress for you if I searched a million years. You look so wonderful,” he said. “How about me, do I stack up to your gorgeousness?”

“Are you kidding?” Riley looked so happy as she touched the side of his mask. “You look like a king that’s like half robot or something! Or fancy Iron Man!”

“Fancy Iron Man I’ll take!” Maxwell pumped the air with his fist. “Hell, the half robot king sounds pretty excellent too! I think we’re all set. Now we just need to dash downstairs, call a private car, and get to the Palace post haste.”

He turned to her and offered her his arm. “My lady?”

She smiled. “My lord,” she said, and took it.


	6. Life is a masquerade, my friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The innerworkings of Maxwell’s mind as Maxwell and Riley continue on to the Masquerade Ball.

The car pulled up to the palace, and Riley and Maxwell stepped outside and walked a little ways together. They each were inwardly amazed at how comfortable the silence was between them, but both were eager to fill it, too. “So how would this be different if it were me and you, and I was in the competition right now?”

“Oh, well, now, for starters, we would be running if we were this late, which knowing me, we would be, but it would be a big deal. This...” he paused, realizing it for the first time, and smiled widely. “Oh God, this isn’t. This isn’t a big deal.” He stopped walking, threw his arms into the air, and screamed, “IT ISN’T A BIG DEAL THAT I’M LATE!”

“Whoa, buddy,” Riley said, smiling at him. “I’m happy for you. I am. But we still gotta go and I must say, I’m just so glad Bertrand didn’t suddenly appear when you said that.”

Maxwell blushed and smiled at Riley. “There are so many times in my life where that’s happened. That exact thing. Some variation of it. But standing here with you, Riley, it kind of just makes me feel like anything is possible. Maybe even the very best things.”

They started up walking again. 

“I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy this,” he said, looking straight ahead. “I would have been completely absorbed in preparing you, with no prep work, for a national noble competition. And it would all be to see you try to fall for someone else.” Maxwell, as always, had chosen his words with his own utmost care. He hadn’t said it outright yet, but he knew what they said to each other during Midnight City and he had on good authority (his own) that she knew what they had both meant, too. It wasn’t as if it was secret spy code. It was obvious. It was like a big red siren on top of his head anyone in the world could see at this point. Or maybe one of those newsboy caps but, like, electronic, from the future. A single message swirling around and around the brim, over and over, just like it did in his mind: I LOVE THIS WOMAN.

“I think we missed the presentation to the King already,” he said. “And we won’t be announced at court together either tonight, I think we missed that part too, unfortunately.” He wasn’t particularly sad about the King presentation, he supposed, although he knew Bertrand would have appreciated him being there. He felt sorry, though, for missing being announced at court...although, it was probably good to have that conversation when they had all the time in the world. He couldn’t imagine positing the question to her and expecting an almost instantaneous answer back. If she had been in the competition it would have been different and, he thought, she would have just went with it. But now, here, outside of the competition...to be announced in front of everyone as his Lady...Maxwell sharply inhaled. 

“You ok?” Riley looked over at Maxwell. “Will Bertrand be unhappy?”

“No, just thinking things over in general,” Maxwell said. “And as for Bertrand, we left it on good terms today, and I know I can always count on him.” He genuinely smiled.

Bertrand had also happened to have had the nicest conversation with him in his entire life back in the office at Ramsford. For some reason he couldn’t exactly place by himself in that moment, although he now knew exactly why, Bertrand had decided to be completely cool about Riley coming to Cordonia on the Beaumont family dime when there weren’t too many of those at all to spare, all things considering. 

They had...talked.

He hadn’t told him, still, and it weighed on him, still, and he was going to have to figure that one out and would love to figure it out sooner than later, honestly, he really would. Because Bertrand had shook his hand at the end of the conversation and told him that he had done the right thing. The moment pressed heavily on Maxwell’s soul. And so it wasn’t as if the Second Big Secret in his life had gotten resolved yet, although he thought it had the potential to end much more happily than the first, namely because this was—he was—born out of love. But he just couldn’t betray anyone outright either, anyone who came to him, asking for help. He liked being a helper. It was who he was, even when he wasn’t finding the best, most effective ways to be helpful, like now.

In short, he was stuck. He pushed it down. Not now, he thought. Riley.


	7. Maxwell’s Masquerade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riley and Maxwell finally make it to the Masquerade!

The room was filled with people. He hadn’t even tried to start telling Riley their names. He had decided it would happen as they went, naturally. There was no pressure the way there would have been if she were competing. They had time. They had so much time. 

Maxwell spotted Bertrand first, and since he had just been thinking of his brother, he decided to bring Riley over that way so that Riley and Whitney could meet. It had been a year or two since he had seen Whitney last. They were friendly, and never actively avoided each other, but Maxwell’s friendship with his favorite cousin certainly was handled separately than those he shared with his closest two friends. He never mentioned Whitney to Liam or Drake after that summer, and that was on purpose. Bertrand only remembered the loud part of the summer, but Maxwell remembered it better. He was their best friend, and he remembered them coming to blows, and he especially remembered the tears and the night it all almost completely fell apart between Liam and Drake. A lifelong friendship, on the brink of devastation, going the way of the dinosaurs...it wasn’t as if it was for nothing, but Christ, he thought. It was one of the worst summers of his whole life.

Whitney Beaumont stood proudly next to Bertrand and smiled. Inside, Maxwell cringed a tiny bit. Whitney, he thought, why did you have to pick that dress? Why couldn’t you be the angel?

“Heeeey cuz,” he said out loud. “Loooooong time no see!”

“Too long, Maxwell, too long,” Whitney said, giving Maxwell a high five. Riley noticed Whitney; Whitney was tall and athletic and had a sporty, short blonde pixie cut. She looked like an Olympic athlete.

“Thanks for coming to our rescue!” Maxwell said to Whitney.

“Of course!” Whitney said. “Happy to help. Beaumonts forever.”

“Beaumonts forever,” Maxwell automatically said back. He really meant it, too. Christ, he just wanted everything to work out. “This is Riley,” he said to Whitney. He didn’t know what else to say, and it felt like it had to be enough for now, so it was. He looked over at Riley who seemed genuinely happy. Okay, he thought, so far, so good. 

The women exchanged pleasantries while Maxwell briefly scanned the room, but before he could find him, Drake was suddenly approaching the group from behind where Bertrand was standing. “Hi everybody,” Drake haltingly said with a practiced smile. “Just wanted to pop on over to say hello.”

Riley hadn’t known Drake for very long at all, but even she, when Maxwell had stolen a glance at her, had looked back at Maxwell with an incredulous look on her face, silently mouthing the words, “Pop on over?!”

“So how’s everybody doing today?” Maxwell tried not to stare at Drake in horror. Drake was so obviously unused to smiling, or maybe it was just that most people were so unused to seeing him smile that it was very uncanny to see so much obviously rehearsed merriment coming from him.

Also, he was being ridiculously obvious.

“Are things...great?” Drake said, then visibly closed his eyes and cringed at himself. Oh, man, Maxwell thought. My buddy, my guy, Drake, I gotta come up with something to help you, but what?

Riley burst out laughing. “Drake I can’t believe you remembered that guy!”

Drake opened his eyes and stared at Riley, trying not to speak, although he wanted to ask her, “What?!” more than he had ever wanted to ask anybody “What?!” in his entire life.

Riley continued, “When we got on the plane today, the copilot had to walk up to each one of us individually and touch our shoulders, and he just kept talking to us in this goofy voice, and finally—“ she giggled again to the point of not being able to talk. Maxwell looked at Riley with admiration. “Finally, the pilot just yelled, ‘Larry, sit down, these people want to get home sometime this decade!’”

Riley, Maxwell, Drake, and Whitney all laughed. Bertrand chucked appreciatively, smiling at Riley the entire time. Drake looked as if he had just been deposited on the beach by a kindly dolphin after almost drowning in the ocean, Maxwell reflected. 

“It’s good to see you again, Drake.” Whitney smiled. “It’s good to see you laugh.”

The expression on Drake’s face changed from Man Eternally Grateful to Man Suddenly With Ten Barrels of Whiskey In Front Of Him. 

“Hi everyone,” Prince Liam suddenly made an appearance with a girl Riley had never met before walking alongside him. “I know I know most of you, but I wanted to make sure I know all of you, and that all of you get to meet my new friend here, too.” Liam had a kindness about him. The new girl looked happy enough.

“Well, you know Drake, of course, and Bertrand, and me. Riley is our new friend from New York, and this is my Johnny-come-lately, good for nothin—“

“Maxwell!”

“Sorry, Bertrand. This is, of course, my cousin Whitney Beaumont.”

“So glad to see you again, Whitney,” Liam smiled warmly. One point for the prince, Maxwell thought to himself. But at least Drake was still in the game thanks to Riley.

“This is Lady Hana Lee,” Liam introduced the new girl to everyone. “Hana has been a dear friend to me this masquerade.” Suddenly, Maxwell was aware of how lonely his friend Liam seemed. Not in any sort of outward way, like Drake or anything like that. Just the fact that he couldn’t be a dear friend to Liam made him a little sad in the moment. He felt like he hadn’t been a dear friend to at least two other men standing there, too. 

Maxwell thought on this privately as the group conversation continued. It was a good dynamic, he thought. He hadn’t seen any of the others yet, but this definitely was a good amount of the core group, at least the ones he wasn’t actively terrified of, or lowkey tolerating but quietly trying to avoid, still. Kiara and Penelope were okay by him as far as court friends or acquaintances went. And then there was always Tariq and the other group acquaintances that were always seen when tour time came. He wondered what Riley would think of the tour. They’d have to get to talking about it all eventually, he thought. Not just Riley, and not just about the tour.

While listening and participating in the group’s lively, boisterous conversation, he considered the two men in the group he had not been a very dear friend to, and how much they had all been very dear friends to him. He wondered if he deserved it. He wondered if he could make this right with them. He wondered how he was going to go about getting that accomplished.


	8. I have to tell you something else

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At home after the Masquerade with Maxwell and Riley.

Maxwell brushed his teeth while looking at himself in the squid mirror. He put water into his squid cup and took a swig and spit. He rinsed out his toothbrush in the squid shaped sink with the two tentacles as faucet handles.

“Maxwell,” he heard Riley call from his room. “Do you have a squid toothbrush?”

He walked out of the bathroom and put his hands on his hips and smiled. “A squid toothbrush?!” he said incredulously. “Now that’s just silly.”

They laughed together. She was looking so cozy just sitting on top of his bed, hugging one of his squids. He wished he was a squid, not for the first time, certainly. Perhaps it was the first time he found himself wishing he was that specific toy squid being hugged by Pajamas Riley, a brand new version of her he sorely needed to get better acquainted with. 

It was time, he thought, to tell her. 

“Hey,” he said. “I have to tell you something.” 

“Okay,” Riley said. She looked him over, this Maxwell in Pajamas. At least, she thought, Maxwell in pajama bottoms and a white cotton shirt that was suddenly—!

Maxwell lifted the shirt off over his head and looked into Riley’s eyes, which were big and wide. She was blushing. “Nice tat, Maxwell,” she said. “Is that the only one?”

He winked at her.

She cleared her throat. “Yes. Well.” She smiled at him. “Baby hippo, huh? Is there a story behind this one?”

He told it to her. As an avid enough comics reader, Maxwell thought to himself, he had seen enough Batman movies to know about Crime Alley and Joe Chill, and Spider-Man and Uncle Ben. He knew this one way better, but he kept it in the pantheon of heroic origin stories nonetheless. He knew it so well he stopped thinking about it as he told her, concentrating deeply on her eyes and facial expressions and reactions. 

Finally, Riley said, “I wish I could have met her, Maxwell.”

“I know,” he said, looking down at his feet. He looked up again, into Riley’s eyes. “That exact thought’s kind of been running through mind all day, myself.” 

They shared a sad smile.

“I hope it was okay that I did that just now,” Maxwell suddenly heard himself say out loud. “I mean, with my shirt, with the taking of it off.” (“The TAKING OF IT OFF?! Are you Drake right now?!” was suddenly a dominant thought in his mind and he had to think faster, and clearer.) “I...I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable or anything, Riley. I don’t ever want you to think I’m a creep or pushy or anything like that,” he finally trailed off. 

Riley climbed off the bed. Look at this girl, thought Maxwell. Just look at her. All the time and effort I’ve spent building walls around myself, and does she need a hammer, or a bulldozer, even? She’s destroyed nearly every last wall of mine, simply by closing the distance between us...

Her arms reached out to him and his arms found her body and held her. They stood there standing together. It felt so good, and safe. 

“Riley?”

She looked up at him, searchingly.

“I...I have to tell you something else,” he said. He took a deep breath.

This story, he thought, he knew a little less in a raw way the way he knew Ode to Annabelle (which he never said out loud but did call that story to himself in his own heart). But he knew it, and he told her, and he didn’t leave anything out. There were no sly omissions, no “well...” and no secret surprises saved up. He just told her everything there was about his relationship with Bartie and Savannah, and the last few years of his life. She didn’t stop him with questions or speculations. He knew she was listening and her body language and facial expressions seemed to be more or less amiable to everything he was saying unless he misjudged her completely and she was some kind of narcissistic sociopath. He felt himself gulp. He supposed that always remained a possibility, but continued to hope for the best as his version of events began to wound down.

He had to admit to himself how easy it was to tell her everything, especially while he held her in his arms against his hippo tattoo. Christ, he was starting to feel lighter already. He was glad he was doing this. This hadn’t been easy on him, or good for him, and he did this all to himself. 

“Do you have any pictures of Bartie?” Riley asked. While he quickly swiped through the pictures on his phone for his most recent favorite, he silently counted his blessings that this was Riley’s first reaction. She would never know the depths of the gratitude for her he felt, but he knew he would always remember.

Finally, he found it, and showed her the phone. She cradled his phone with both her hands and smiled. He had to admit to himself he had chosen an excellent picture of himself on purpose. Not that it was some type of glamour shot or he had achieved Blue Steel in the shot and pose, nothing like that. But he was smiling genuinely, and Bartie was too. It had been such a happy day he was able to steal away for. He took Bartie to the nearby park under the ever-watchful eye of Savannah Walker. He pushed Bartie in the baby swings. Savannah had snapped the shot and as soon as she showed it to him that day, he was just so happy to see it. He loved this little boy so much in such a meaningful way. A small, unfamiliar hope in his heart announced itself to him in that moment with Riley looking at the picture on his phone. He recognized it at once and once again was awed by the feelings Riley continued to awaken and inspire within him. He found himself hoping she thought he looked like he could be a good dad.

“What do you think they’re doing right now?” Riley handed the phone back to him and looked him straight in the eye. 

“Well, it’s definitely bedtime by now—“

“Maxwell,” she looked at him. Oh God, he thought, she’s going to tell me I’m a bad person and she hates me—

“Maxwell, don’t you think Bertrand would be a good dad?”

Well, he hadn’t expected to hear THAT, he supposed. “Sure, no question,” he said.

“Then why aren’t you letting him have a chance?”

Oh my God, he thought. How...how...HOW had she macheted through all of the bullshit and gotten to the heart of the problem before he could even start to be ready to define it? He had been vainly struggling alone with this seemingly unsolvable, insurmountable problem for so long, and he tells her, and right away—!

“I...” No, not now, anything but now, he pleaded with himself. You can’t cry in front of her twice in one day, you just can’t, come on, man. But the moment’s emotion took hold of him, and all of his good intentions and acts of kindness and the sneaking and lying all seemed to come crashing down in that moment at once. “I didn’t know what to do,” he finally said, trying to catch his breath. “I tried my best.”

She held him tighter and sighed against his tattoo. “I know you did,” she said.

“I don’t know how to fix this,” he whispered. “I don’t know how any of them will speak to me again.”

Riley kept her grip firmly around Maxwell. Then he felt her pull back to look at him.

Finally, she said, “I don’t either, but tomorrow we are going to figure it out. Together.”


	9. You’ll be as close to heaven as you’ll ever be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Silent early morning musings with Maxwell, and some old memories.

Maxwell woke up. For one terrible second he legitimately began to become terrified it was all only a dream. It had all the hallmarks of one. He had fallen irrevocably in love with the most charming and beautiful woman he had ever known and somehow made her fall in love with him, too, all under the space of twenty four hours.

He took a breath. Immediately he realized where he was, and where she was and ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh she’s my little spoon. She’s my little spoon. It’s ok. This is really my life. He exhaled deeply. This was his to keep.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

They were still in pajamas. Standing up hugging had turned into let’s hug in bed which turned into her being his little spoon. He held her a little tighter and she leaned her back into him and sighed. He tried to remember the lyrics to “Take Off With Us” from All That Jazz that he was searching for and found them firmly in his memory instantly. 

Up there where the clouds are pillowy,  
You’ll be as close to heaven as you’ll ever be.

He and Whitney had loved watching that movie that summer with Drake, Liam, and Bertrand. “This movie is great, guys!” Whitney had a big happy grin on her face putting it on. She was the only person in the room that day who had seen it previously.

And it was so great, but dear LORD Whitney...

Somehow—SOMEHOW they had all survived Take Off With Us. It was a struggle. No one really made eye contact with each other. Whitney, as always, was just jamming out and a teeny bit oblivious to the fact that Drake and Liam were obviously both blushing furiously while she bounced around to the song sitting in between them on the couch. Maxwell suddenly had to stifle a giggle so as not to wake his little spoon Riley in the present. He had remembered, for the first time in YEARS, the memory of Bertrand obviously clearing his throat TWICE during the song, and then, to the utter private amusement of Maxwell and Whitney much later, sneezing extremely loudly in the middle of a certain part of the dance number.

Yeah, Whitney was fun, alright. She was. But Christ. 

That was just the part of the movie where everyone didn’t make eye contact, though. There was another part where only Bertrand and Maxwell didn’t seem to be able to look at each other. “Some of these Days” struck a nerve between the two of them that neither really liked to address or touch, and there, all of a sudden, there it all was. Their own private hell. That little girl, singing her heart out to her dad in the hospital.

You’ll miss me Daddy  
If you go away 

And then “Bye Bye Life” hit. Maxwell didn’t cry then-he didn’t. He cried much later in his room, alone, thinking about the song, and about his dad, and his brother, and his mom, and that little girl again in the movie holding onto her dad and crying while Ben Vereen sang...

Another dusty but not forgotten memory appeared before him from that day too, later, privately, with Bertrand. Maxwell had collected the glasses in the movie room and started to load the glorious dishwasher of Ramsford. Bertrand stepped into the kitchen and stood in the doorway, looking on. 

Maxwell turned to him with a smile. “Some movie,” he said.

“Mmm,” Bertrand said. It may as well have been a homily. It didn’t seem to Maxwell as if he was going to get cast down into hell, so that was nice, this time. They were good. Bertrand turned away. 

Then he paused.

Then he looked directly at Maxwell. Present Maxwell couldn’t believe he had ever forgotten this moment in his life even for a second, no matter how exciting or wonderful his life was genuinely beginning to get. 

A single tear rolled down Bertrand’s right cheek. “That, to me,” said Bertrand said very slowly, very deliberately, “was art.” 

Maxwell was dumbstruck. He just quietly nodded to his brother in show of support. Bertrand walked out of the room. Maxwell understood immediately that this changed nothing, that Bertrand was still Bertrand. He probably could never even bring this up with him again, actually, he had realized in that moment, but the fact that it had happened at all had meant so much to Maxwell.

Maxwell wrapped his arms around little spoon Riley a little more tightly in the present. Tomorrow—he should say, today. Today would be a challenge to say the least. Today was going to be misery for him, to answer for every good intention he had with a screw loose. He really didn’t know how this was all going to go. He didn’t know what he deserved. 

Whatever it was that he deserved, he reflected as he settled in, snuggling against the back of Riley’s neck and sighing, he would take it. He would take whatever the universe wanted to give to him. It had given him her.


	10. ...then disappeared into Bertrand’s study.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maxwell’s conversation with Bertrand in the study from Chapter 2 is revealed.

Yesterday

“My turn,” said Maxwell as she passed him in the hall. “How’d it go for you?”

“I don’t want to jinx myself but I think okay?” Riley said.

“Okay is good!” Maxwell smiled, then disappeared into Bertrand’s study. 

Here they were, brother to brother. Bertrand had come around to stand in front of his desk, Maxwell noticed. Holy shit, he thought. He usually only does that on Christmas and my birthday and his. Every conversation between the two of them, ever since Annabelle Beaumont became just a name etched in stone, had been some form of a lecture, even if it was just a conversation, it still contained the echoes of the last one. 

Maxwell wasn’t an idiot, not that Bertrand ever outright said he was, but Maxwell knew that Bertrand prided himself on preparation and organization, and Maxwell triumphantly did not. It was funny when it worked, which was usually all of the time, especially functionally. He didn’t mean to grieve his brother with his personal style, but he knew it was an inevitability at this point in their lives that his exuberance seemed to annoy and jostle every fork lined up perfectly in Bertrand’s mind.

Lord Maxwell Percival Beaumont was a lot of wonderful things, dear reader, but one thing he was not was a mind reader.

If Bertrand could know what Maxwell felt and thought, he would have tried to set Maxwell straight.

As it stood, in Bertrand’s heart and mind, looking at his baby brother at that moment, he was so proud of him. 

Truth be told, dear reader, there wasn’t a moment in Bertrand Beaumont’s life where he wasn’t proud of his chirpy, creative, caring and kind baby brother who always tried to cheer him at every opportunity and took every criticism he faced with grace.

But how, he thought to no one except for himself, could he ever possibly afford to show that to him?

The saddest thing in his life...well, hell, Bertrand considered. One of them, anyway...but one thing that never failed to make him miserable every day of his miserable existence without her, without Savannah...was the distance he purposely kept his brother at for his own sake.

No one had understood him the way Savannah Walker had, he reflected for the third or so time that day, and now everything was stupid and to borrow a phrase from Maxwell when he seemed particularly distressed, sucked. She was wonderful. She was the best thing he had in his entire life. He didn’t know what the hell he was doing when he woke up every day. He couldn’t even scream at the sky (well, metaphorically speaking, of course, he was a Duke) and wonder aloud where the hell he went wrong because he knew exactly where he went wrong and exactly that it was no use trying to fix it, it was ruined and she was gone forever and he had to just keep trudging through this world completely devoid of beauty and color without her presence in it.

No one, he thought, could FATHOM the depths of how much he desperately missed Savannah Walker. How much he wondered after her and hoped and secretly prayed that she was doing well. She had been his rock at court, he realized far too late. The two older siblings with two little brothers who tended to get into scraps and needed guidance. How could he possibly keep Maxwell as close as he wanted to be to him when Maxwell had no one else he could count on? Savannah knew that, but she was so much better at it naturally than he was at still being warm with her own brother. He was trying to learn, desperately, how to teach his brother what he needed to know without coming off as, to borrow Savannah’s phrase during a particularly spirited private discussion between the two of them, “a maniac with a screaming fetish.”

She made him humble, he reflected somberly, the way mother had once made father humble. And she made him laugh the way mother had always, always made father laugh. The way she had made all of them laugh. And then she died, he bitterly thought, trying to focus on the task at hand, but lost in his own mental mist. Then she died, and Ramsford immediately acquired a deafening silence. 

He looked up. Maxwell was looking at him but saying nothing. Bertrand appreciated that more than he could dignify.

Bertrand didn’t know how to approach this one, he thought to himself, but honestly what else was new. He had been playing a game with himself unbeknownst to anyone else for a long time now. “Which does he need?,” he liked to call it. Every interaction with Maxwell, he tried to approach it from which angle he truly needed advice from-brother, or father. Even before father became so very ill, he wasn’t much of anything and there had always been tutors, and governesses, and schools, and so on and so forth into infinity. There was always someone Barthelemy Beaumont could hire FOR his children, certainly. But the things his sons needed—the things he himself, Bertrand Beaumont desperately needed, he always had to find within himself. He knew it was the same with Maxwell, and just like Savannah, it was easier for him to be a better sport about the whole thing and chin up. At least, Bertrand quietly thought, he had hoped so.

It’s not like it was hard to know why he walked around the way that he did all day, snapping at everything and being obsessed with perfection, Bertrand thought to himself. Anybody with eyes can see me trying my best and coming up short at every turn here. Bertrand Beaumont had needed, desperately needed, a father his entire life, and not only did he not get a decent one, he also had to turn around and try to cobble together some kind of Frankenstein’s monster of a parent personality on himself for Maxwell, too.

Bertrand realized just how much his brother succeeded in rubbing off on him after pondering his last thought.

Right. Maxwell.

“So tell me about her,” he said. He thought, this sounds good, it sounds neutral and friendly enough.

Maxwell’s eyes lit up. Bertrand realized with joy when he looked at his brother that that was precisely all he needed to know. But he yearned to know more about this girl, this Riley. Who was she to him exactly? Bertrand tried his very best to shut up and listen.

“She’s from Boston but moved to New York to get a fresh start,” Maxwell began. Fresh start sounded ominous, Bertrand thought, but said nothing. “Her parents died in a car accident. That was what she needed to get a fresh start from, mostly,” Maxwell continued. “She had an ex in Boston that seemed pretty serious but also, between just us, kind of mercurial. I saved a picture of the guy from her phone, I sent it to myself, I wanted to show you,” he said, pulling his phone up so that Bertrand could see and swiping through pictures to find that one. “Don’t worry, Riley knows. You’ll see right away why I saved it.”

Bertrand took a good hard look at the photo and then went back around to the other side of his desk and pulled his blasted bifocals out and then scowled a little more at the phone, then looked up at Maxwell with a smile. “This can’t be him, Maxwell.”

“BUT IT LOOKS SO MUCH LIKE HIM,” Maxwell said. Maxwell looked so joyful it made Bertrand want to throw this Riley Brooks a parade this very minute.

“This man cannot be and is not Doctor Strange, Maxwell,” Bertrand said while trying and failing to not laugh, then positively chortled. 

“That’s not even the best part, brother!” Maxwell continued, “because he could be! He’s a doctor!”

“No,” Bertrand said, dragging out the o and laughing harder. This was the best gossip he had heard in months and it wasn’t even anything to do with court or Ramsford or anything significant or important. This was why he loved Maxwell, among about a trillion other reasons he couldn’t even possibly try to start to name. 

“It’s true! Riley said diagnostics. I guess they still trade Christmas cards, he’s that kind of guy. Riley said he still kept in touch with his very first patient. I wonder if he did it with his miiiiiiiiiiind pooooooooowerrrrrrs!” he wiggled his fingers at Bertrand who laughed even harder.

“We must—we must focus, Maxwell,” Bertrand said. He wiped his eyes a little. The two looked at each other.

“This is so nice,” Maxwell said, hoping he didn’t ruin the moment.

“It is,” Bertrand said. He couldn’t, possibly. “Maxwell, I want you to focus on this girl.”

“What?” Maxwell was pretty sure the inside of his mind looked like a Cordonian Chuck E. Cheese’s with every video game’s noises going off at once.

“I know Whitney. I can handle her, more or less. I’ll ask you for help if I absolutely must, if it is especially crucial that I need you, because I know that you will help me. I want to help you, little brother,” Bertrand said.

Maxwell looked so shocked and grateful. Bertrand cherished this moment so completely while he was still within it. “Thank you, Bertrand,” Maxwell finally said in the smallest voice he could manage.

“Thank you, Maxwell,” Bertrand stuck his hand out to shake, which Maxwell shook without a second’s delay. “For doing the right thing.”


	11. Interlude with Ethan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riley gets a friendly text from her ex.

Today  
When Riley heard Maxwell’s shower starting in the next room, at that exact moment the water hit the tiled floor, she got a text alert on her phone.

Holy shit, she thought when she saw who it was. She put the phone on silent automatically. She could spare a few minutes. It was quite fortuitous timing.

IS THIS YOU? LOOKING FANCY 👀  
A link to a Cordonian gossip blog was attached, and there she stood, laughing and looking gorgeous with Maxwell behind the link jump. She looked at the time stamp on the blog. This picture was posted five hours ago. She took a screenshot of the picture to show Maxwell later. They looked so cute together. She smiled and did a happy jumping dance inside her heart.

Then Riley had to roll her eyes. Still typing in all caps to save time, huh, Ethan. Okay. Here we go.

“It is me! Can I ask your interest in Cordonia and gossip sites? 👀”

🤯 WHAAAAT  
YOU KNOW ME, I GOTTA KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT EVERYTHING

Boy, did he ever, Riley thought to herself. Even though they still were friends, genuinely, she sometimes felt exhausted when considering her past romantic relationship with him. He loved reading. He devoured books ravenously in what little spare time he had. She once saw him play against the television for an episode of Jeopardy and won while they ate their late lunch together one afternoon. Didn’t leave an awful lot of time for anything else when he kept chasing mysteries down long rabbit holes on Wikipedia. For an entire week, Riley remembered with an equal amount of amusement and exhaustion, Ethan was convinced that he had solved the mystery of D. B. Cooper. There was a blackboard with pictures taped on it, and red string, and each time Riley tells the story to others it is shouted down as too wild but it happened. Ethan was willing to go all in, every time. You just didn’t know, she thought quietly, when you ever get a person like him back from that hole that never gets filled.

Her phone lit up again. SO WHO’S THE GUY? 

“You tell me! 😉”

Riley silently laughed as her screen lit up again. Then she saw his text.

HOW LONG ARE YOU GOING TO BE OVER THERE?

It was an honest question. It was definitely an Ethan question, because he loved to ask questions that only one person could possibly know constantly.

Riley left the text unread. She couldn’t answer it yet. At least, not to him, to the final word, she supposed.

She knew how she ought to answer the question, maybe with another winky smile and another coy “You tell me!” though he would immediately and rightly call her out for being repetitive and not furthering the cause of his endless quest of More Information. 

Or even if she had lied and said “Not sure yet,” it would have been acceptable, but she knew it would have been wrong. 

She knew what she wanted to type. But not yet. Not after one day—a day she was willing to admit was the very best day of her life—but still one day, only. One word only to answer Ethan...hell, she thought. She’d even do it up in all caps, just to let him know how efficient she was being with her time.

FOREVER.


	12. Chains of Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Savannah Walker, Stage Right.

Maxwell stood in front of Savannah’s apartment door.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

He had backup. 

He knocked. Savannah came to the door, rocking a white shirt and pink cardigan and blue jeans, and Bartie on her hip. “Hey!” she said with a big smile. “I didn’t realize you were coming over today! I would have made apple pie.”

That, Maxwell thought, still smiling at Savannah while standing in the hallway, was as good as any a place to start.

“Thanks for that,” he said, reaching just to the left of the apartment’s front door. Savannah looked, and Maxwell stood back up with a stack full of white cue cards, the backs facing Savannah. “You really do make it feel like it’s the thought that counts,” he earnestly said. 

“Okay, whoa, look, Maxwell—“ Maxwell looked at Savannah and realized how befuddled yet polite her expression was as she ever so gently shook her head. He realized his mistake almost instantly. 

“Oh no, this isn’t what it looks like. This isn’t Love Actually, Savannah. This is Bob Dylan and Don’t Look Back—that kind of feel, okay?” She nodded, still looking politely befuddled, but a vague understanding seemed to have gathered in her face. She understood the references and she was no longer actively tense. It pleased Maxwell to no end to see how truly loyal to Bertrand she had always been. 

“Wait, can we do this inside?” Savannah suddenly said. “I don’t want to be obnoxious for my neighbors here.” 

Maxwell smiled. “Of course, but that means you’re going to meet a very special guest to me right now who was supposed to be working the boom box during this and was totally right that I should have referenced Bob Dylan right away, she totally called it on the way here in the car.”

“Wait—the CAR? Maxwell, you DROVE HERE? With—“ her eyes seemed to sparkle all of a sudden. “With WHO? And you brought the boom box here?! Get in here! I have one thousand and one questions for you!” Just wait, Maxwell thought.

Maxwell stepped into the house with Riley trailing behind him a little slower, hoisting the squid boom box up into her arms and carrying it into Savannah’s apartment, gently depositing the turquoise beauty onto Savannah’s thankfully clean coffee table next to the cue cards Maxwell had just put down. Riley stood and held out her hand. “Hi, I’m Riley,” she said.

“Savannah,” Savannah said, shaking Riley’s hand gently and smiling, mystified instantly, while holding Bartie. “So.” She looked between the two of them. “When did the two of you meet?”

Maxwell and Riley looked at each other and laughed for a long time. “Day before yesterday,” Maxwell finally wheezed out in between gales of laughter. It was so refreshing to laugh this way and see himself through a completely new person’s eyes. Yes. He knew it was crazy. They seriously just met. They managed to get Savannah up to speed about how and a select few of their adventures so far. 

“Well,” Savannah finally said, looking at the two of them, Bartie in a bouncer on the floor nearby. “I think that’s just about the most romantic thing I’ve heard in my whole life!” She looked so genuinely excited. “Two days?!” 

“Two days,” he said. He couldn’t believe it, either. 

“And you two drove all the way here?” Savannah asked incredulously.

Maxwell and Riley exchanged a look. Savannah noticed.

“Well,” Savannah finally said after a small burst of silent thinking. “Don’t look back?” 

Maxwell stood and held the cards up while Riley pressed play on the squid boombox.

Savannah recognized the Erasure song “Chains of Love,” right away, just about the first few seconds of the song. 

How can I explain when there are few words I can choose  
How can I explain when words get broken  
Do you remember there was a time,  
When people on the street  
We're walking hand in hand in hand  
They used to talk about the weather  
Making plans together  
Days would last forever  
Savannah would have loved to see the cue cards, but Riley and Maxwell had gotten lost in the moment in front of her somehow, even though she was literally sitting right there, and were lip syncing to the song to each other. “Guys!” Savannah said.

“Oh!” Maxwell stopped. “Sorry, Savannah. Let me queue up the music again,” he reached for the squid boombox.

“No!” Savannah. “The two of you are jackasses and I mean that with a lot of love but maybe also bless your hearts a little?”

Maxwell put his hand on his chest and looked a little aghast. “Language!” he said.

“Gimme those damn cards,” Savannah said, taking them.

She flipped through them. She got the gist. 

“They’ve just been sitting out there the whole time we’ve been in here?” Savannah didn't seem to be able to stop looking at the floor.

“This was my fault,” Maxwell said. “I know you weren’t ready to face them, but I was the one that made them worry. This is on me. They both know that.”

Savannah suddenly looked up at Maxwell and looked as if she had a lemon in her mouth. “Do you mean to tell me that you all piled in to my brother’s rusty truck...”

“Don’t you dare let him hear you say that,” Maxwell said, laughing.

“He can hear anything I want to say! You all piled into that stupid, mangy, flea ridden, alleged truck held together by rust and spit and—“ Savannah stopped talking and threw her head back and cackled. She got ahold of herself after ten seconds. “And you had to hold that damn boombox and those damn cue cards all the way here?!” She started laughing so hard she shook. “What was the plan, Maxwell? That I pile this apartment and this little man with his millions of doo-dahs and boo-bahs and crib in the back, maybe get some string to tie it a little and hope for the best all the way home? With three grown men who should certainly know better and Riley?“ She paused and looked at Riley, “No offense Riley, but your involvement in this is hardly a matter of ‘you should know better’ and more a matter of ‘Welcome to the Monkey House.’”

Riley laughed, and Savannah laughed too. They each sensed an instant kinship in each other. 

“I was thinking of just calling a private car to follow,” Maxwell said. “And I didn’t think about who’s riding where, but I know Bartie has a car seat, and I know we all want you both to come back so badly.”

Savannah gave Maxwell a pained look. “That’s all well and good, but Bertrand—“

“Bertrand did not know all the facts,” Maxwell said. “And the facts are, that that man loves you more than he loves Cordonia—Bartie or not—and if he knew how you felt, you’d never be able to get rid of him.” 

Savannah looked at the ground quietly for a long time.

“He missed out on so much,” she slowly said. “There’s so much time I can’t give back to him.”

“The onus is on me,” Maxwell said. “I know it’s easy for me to march in here and say that, and another thing for you to carry it around. But this was just an impossible situation we found ourselves in, but we’re out now, and it’s going to be easier now.”

“I believe you,” Savannah said, looking right at him. “We really wrote ourselves into a corner here, I don’t know who we thought we were kidding.”

Maxwell held his head up high. “Hey,” he said gently. “We both tried our best. It does matter that we did try because you wanted to and you deserved that chance. Maybe I wasn’t the right person to give it to you. I’m sorry. But you’re doing a really good job with Bartie and Bertrand is going to catch up as much as he catches up with pictures and time. Just come home with us, please. I’ll figure everything out with this place after we leave.”

Savannah looked at the ground for five seconds. Then she looked right at Riley. “What do you make of all this mess, newbie?”

“Mostly none of my business out of respect,” Riley began.

“Good answer,” Savannah said with glowing eyes.

“But also,” Riley said, looking at Savannah very earnestly, “I want you to come back with us too because you seem really cool and I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing half the time with all these fancy people.”

“Oh, girl,” Savannah said. “You are making me miss my brother in that damn truck so bad right now. Okay.”


	13. The Ride Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Writing this chapter made me realize that drunk Savannah Walker is my favorite Savannah Walker.

Riley was sitting in the backseat holding hands with Maxwell, who had his eyes closed and head rested against the back of the seat. If she only knew, he thought, that I feel like I’m flying right now. If she only knew how free she helps me feel. God bless Cordonia, he thought. God bless America, too, he thought judiciously. Land of the Maxwell, Home of the Riley. God bless this universe and all those who reside within it. I can’t believe I fucking pulled it off.

“Ohhhhhhh,” Savannah sang loudly along to the radio while sticking her head out the window, “we’re halfway there.”

“Whoa-oh! Livin’ on a prayer!“ sang the rest of the car, even Drake.

“So remind me again why we are taking you, and you aren’t with Bertrand and Bartie in the private car,” Drake began while driving the alleged truck, “and especially why you drank every drop of whiskey in my secret flask, Savannah?”

Riley knew they weren’t sisters-in-law yet, but she absolutely made note of the moment that Savannah Walker became her sister in her heart.

“Drake Shitkicker Walker,” Savannah said, to the roars of Riley and Maxwell in the backseat. She turned and looked up at him real slow like they were back on the ranch. “I got my reasons.”

“Okay, okay, go easy on me, will you?”

“You’re the one giving me a hard time right now,” Savannah said, looking into his face. 

“Well, you’re the one,” Drake slowly began, “who pulled me in for a hug, whispered, ‘I missed you so much,’ and stole the secret flask right out of my pocket while I was basking in the moment.” 

“Hey guys,” Savannah turned completely around in her seat and smiled at Riley and at Maxwell. She was a little loaded. “Hey. Lovers in love. You guys’ll get this.” She turned back to Drake.

“Do you really think, Drake, that I’m going to have the first conversation I’ve had in a long time with the love of my life in front of a stranger in the back of a car? That’s not how this is gonna get done. We’re talking it out, alright, but it’s gonna be when we are good and ready, and back at home proper. And after I can sit and wait patiently for clarity to come to me about this mess, I am going to love that man.” At this point Savannah had tears in her eyes. 

“You’re a hot mess,” Drake chastised Savannah.

“Oh, you’re one to talk,” she said. “Hey, dickface, Maxwell told me Whitney’s back in town.”

Drake sighed and said nothing.

“She better watch it,” Savannah suddenly said loudly. 

“Hey! Okay! You’re scary as shit when you’re drunk!” Drake tried to keep his eyes on the road.

“This isn’t me drunk,” Savannah said. “This is me drunk,” she paused to delicately belch, “and miserable. And out, without Bartie for the first time ever. They can have father son time right now.“ She found her handkerchief, “God knows they need it!” She began to cry.

“Savannah—“

She looked at Drake with sad, angry eyes.

“I’m...I’m sorry I gave you a hard time. I really missed you every day. I’m so glad to see you again.”

“I’m sorry too,” she said. “And I missed you too—way, way too much.” She wiped her eyes. “I also really needed a drink.” She sniffed. “And it’s not like your secret flask is a state secret, Drake.”

“Or a secret at all,” Maxwell added with a sleepy smile.

“Hey!” Drake barked at Maxwell. “You’re not off the hook yet. I’m still really hurt and pissed at you for letting me worry and that goes double for your poor brother.” 

“Sorry, Drake.” Maxwell quietly said. Drake nodded at him. He drove on.

Maxwell recognized the blessings he needed to count almost instantaneously. 1: The word yet. 2. Drake had said “your poor brother” in reference to Bertrand. Drake actually felt sorry for Bertrand right now. Maxwell considered the possibility that he existed as some sort of rage sponge for Drake right now. He was just glad that it was a tentative peace or at the very least not all our war between the two of them. It was neither’s fault, really. That would have been one more thing to feel culpable for if the two of them had decided they were going to go from being mostly okay with each other to punching each other in the face.   
3\. Savannah was looking out for him and Riley.


	14. I See You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maxwell, Riley, and his First Big Secret.
> 
> TW. This chapter references the story MadMax which is canon in this universe. Please go back into my works and make sure you read that first so you can know everything.

“Hey,” Maxwell said. “Remember when we were talking about the past, and you said you moved to New York to make a fresh start?”

They were lying in bed together, side by side, completely clothed. They came into Maxwell’s room after the road trip and both immediately plopped down onto the bed, as-is condition, out of total and complete exhaustion from the day’s events and their emotional heft. 

“Sure,” said Riley.

He turned his entire body so he was facing her. Electrified, she did the same. Maxwell and Riley gazed into each other’s eyes.

“I was thinking,” Maxwell began, and then paused. Riley saw him breathe in and out.  
—  
Riley wanted him to know in these moments she was listening to him. She was listening to him with her entire soul and mind. 

Maxwell’s words washed over her and only affirmed what she had already sensed about him quite perceptively on the plane ride to Cordonia when they were discussing the past in a dreamy first date sort of way.

Being with Ethan for the relatively short yet equally infinite time they shared taught Riley a lot about people, an awful lot, Riley sadly reflected sometimes. Like now.

Riley couldn’t ignore gaps the way other people could in personal histories. She spotted inaccuracies in the tiniest details, “where they usually lay,” Ethan always said. She couldn’t ignore certain facial tics. Maxwell himself had some tells that she had picked up on right away, almost instantly and intuitively. She didn’t want to reveal how she spotted it exactly, but the moment she knew, she knew. It was a big reason why she reached out so slowly and so gently to hold him every chance that she could.

Riley wanted him to know in these moments that these were his feelings and his emotions and above all else his experiences and his life. And that there was nothing wrong with absolutely any aspect of him as a human being. 

Riley Brooks, dear reader, never claimed any ownership of Lord Maxwell Percival Beaumont. She couldn’t dare. 

How could she ever possibly own that which itself was so permanently free, forever dancing slowly in the wind?

Maxwell truly believed from the utmost depths of his soul he owned himself again, dear reader, after walking away from his first potential girl BFF that miserable, most Batman-esque day he ever got dragged through, kicking and screaming, by his own will for himself. 

No one knew this but him, but the night before Maxwell Beaumont Independence Day, he had a very brief, incalculably meaningful dream about his mother that spurred his magnificent one-man march to Fydelia.

There she was before him, standing as if she were really there. There were no dreamy pretensions in his mind-Maxwell was almost approaching lucidity—because he instantly recognized who she was and that she absolutely could not be there because every goddamned thing would be different, and better, about his life were she still living in it. 

No words needed to be spoken between them, but once again, the universe threw Lord Maxwell Percival Beaumont a bone. It was a throwback, of course, because it was a dream, but it was a golden oldie. One might even call it the number one hit single forevermore in his mind. The three gentle words she always told him when things were hard or he wanted to give up. 

Annabelle Beaumont looked into his eyes. “I got you,” she said. That was literally all he needed.  
—

Maxwell breathed in and out slowly. He closed his eyes immediately after concluding talking. He just needed a minute before he looked at Riley. He knew he was going to be greeted with love, and kindness, and everything he could ever dream of when he opened his eyes. He just needed a minute more to himself to just be himself before he opened his eyes when there was nothing left to hide. 

He opened his eyes. 

Riley was looking at him. She may as well have been holding his soul in her hands in that moment, he reflected.

“Can I play a song for you?” Riley quietly whispered.

“Yes,” he whispered back. He silently watched her as she put her phone in the squid boombox. She came back to bed as the song played. He didn’t know this one, Maxwell reflected as Riley placed herself in the same position from before. But as always, he loved what she showed to him immediately. 

I see you when you're down  
And depressed, just a mess  
I see you when you cry  
When you're shy  
When you want to die  
I see you when you smile  
It takes a while  
At least you're here  
I see you  
Yes, I see you  
I'm alone with you  
You're alone with me  
I see you when you hide  
And when you lie, it's no surprise  
I see you when run from the light  
Within your eyes  
I see you when you think  
That I don't notice all those scars  
I see you  
Yes, I see you  
I'm alone with you  
You're alone with me  
What a mess you've made of everything  
I'm alone with you  
You're alone with me  
And I'm hoping that you will see yourself  
Like I see you  
Yes, I see you  
I see you  
Yes, I see you  
I'm alone with you  
You're alone with me  
I see you when you chase  
All the dreams inside your head  
I see you when you laugh  
And when you love until the bitter end  
I see you in the dark  
At the dawn of something new  
I see you  
Yes, I see you  
I'm alone with you  
You're alone with me  
And I'm hoping that you will see yourself  
Like I see you  
Yes, I see you  
I see you  
Yes, I see you  
Even when you cry  
And even when you're shy  
You mean everything to me  
Even when you lie  
And even when you hide  
You mean everything to me  
Yes, I see you  
(I see, I see, I see you)  
I see you  
Even when you cry  
And even when you're shy  
Yes, I see you  
(I see, I see, I see you)  
I'm alone with you  
You're alone with me  
And I'm hoping that you will see yourself

The song washed over Maxwell the way his words washed over Riley. It only affirmed something he already knew in his heart. Maxwell kissed Riley as the song ended. 

“I love you,” he said. He whispered it. Every bell in the world echoed inside of Riley’s heart.

“I love you too,” Riley said. They kissed again.


	15. Where are my friends?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liam is lonely!

Prince Liam looked out from a window of the palace and frowned. He wondered what the FUCK his friends were doing.

Obviously, he thought, there were circumstances. And things that needed to be addressed. And everything sounded like it was starting to settle down over there in Ramsford, he thought, he hoped. He PRAYED.

Liam loved Maxwell like the brother he always wanted and deserved, and loved Bertrand too. But those two could fuck up a two car funeral on a good day sometimes, and things needed to settle down over there so everyone could come back and dress in matching outfits with him again.

It’s not like he had a thing about it, he thought defensively to himself. But what else was there to do as the prince? He might as well have some fun with it from time to time. In a private conversation with Maxwell once at a past ball, Maxwell admitted to Liam that when he, Drake, and Liam matched, it made him feel like the Royal Justice League. The two had shared a laugh in the most boring, stuffy ball of that yawn of a season. But Liam had taken that sweet, ridiculous idea from Maxwell and ran with it. Fashion could be meaningful, he thought. Fashion could be fun and show loyalty and friendship.

UGH! WHY AREN’T THEY BACK YET?

“Knock knock,” he heard a voice at his door—a welcome one. He turned around, scarcely able to believe his ears.

There she stood in his doorway in all her glory. Talk about fun fashion, he thought to himself. Liam loved what she was wearing and tried to remember each detail of her red dress with that slit up the leg and that plunging neckline, but had to admit to himself how grateful he was to be seeing her at all. This wouldn’t play at the next event. There would be a scandal if she wore this number out, and she would be smiling into the camera of every picture on every front page.

He sighed. Whitney.

“Hello there,” Liam said, as neutral sounding as he could, when inside his mind sounded like the sound effects of a Tex Avery cartoon. He wondered if he pulled it off. He did, mostly. 

“The little prince,” Whitney said with a smirk. It was an old private joke between two of them. When Whitney first came to Ramsford that summer, he had been reading the book when she walked in the door. She thought it was the funniest thing in the world. “The little prince reading the little prince!” she crowed. 

That summer, he thought to himself for just a second before he made himself stop. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” he heard himself say.

“Bored,” said Whitney. “Waiting for everybody to get back.” She raised her eyebrows at Liam.

He couldn’t help raising his eyebrows back at her. “It is quite the story, I’m told,” he said as diplomatically as he could.

“Knowing Savannah,” Whitney said with that smirk again. “I’d expect nothing less.”

“Liam, I—“ A fierce flash of red suddenly appeared before the two of them. “Oh.” Suddenly the room temperature dropped, drastically. “Hello, Whitney,” Olivia said through clenched teeth.

“Olivia Nevrakis, as I live and breathe,” Whitney said without so much as a blink. 

“Sadly, yes, you are still doing both of those things,” Olivia retorted with a smile.

“Temper, temper, now, tiger,” Whitney demurred. “Remember, we’re being judged on our dispositions as well, Olivia.”

Knives, thought Olivia. Daggers, swords. This is the reason why weapons were invented. For insidious, smirking enemies like that of Whitney Beaumont. Oh, to have five minutes alone with her knives with that witch! That absolute she-devil! Five minutes was all that she required. But no, Olivia thought, she had to do it the hard way. The polite way. The not-knives way. The slow way. 

“Of course, Lady Beaumont,” Olivia demurred right back. “As you well know, some of us have been born and bred for this, and others? Like you?” Olivia decided it was her time to smirk. “Well, they don’t call them pretenders at court for nothing, now do they,” she finished with a smile.

Whitney laughed. “You are a treasure,” she said, looking straight into Olivia’s eyes with a look that conveyed the thought: one I would much prefer being lost on an ocean floor somewhere far, far away from here.

Liam felt like he was standing in the middle of the world’s sexiest crossfire. I mean, this was hot, mostly, but he wanted to get out before someone got hit.

“I just had a thought,” Liam said, and both women were silent. They looked at him as if nothing had transpired and they were all just standing around talking, having a wonderful time. 

“I want to go to the kitchen and eat some apple pie,” he said simply. He looked at both of them, and then left the room. 

Olivia and Whitney looked at each other, dumbfounded. 

“He meant alone, right?” Whitney said, suddenly unsure of herself.

“That’s how I would read that,” Olivia smoldered. “No verbal invitation. He was sick of us fighting and being as politely rude as possible just now.”

“Mm,” Whitney said. Olivia heard the utterance as: Liam didn’t used to do that the summer we all played tonsil hockey while you trained.

Ah, Olivia thought. Finally, an opening. She almost felt sorry for Whitney just now, she thought. This was going to be too easy.


	16. Hot cocoa and apple pie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 🎶Someone’s in the kitchen with Liam  
> Someone’s in the kitchen we knooooow 🎶

Liam walked glumly down to the kitchen. It was a neat trick, he thought, but Olivia would be ready for him next time. She always was.

Liam sighed as he thought about Olivia. He knew, painfully, how much she had loved him, how much she still obviously believed she loved him now, too. It wasn’t that she didn’t, he thought. That was the part that made it so complicated. She was just so angry all the time. There was no getting through to her. Court had gotten to her in the worst possible way—the ugly side, anyway. The intrigue and machinations, and the constant, endless scheming. He couldn’t even blame her for giving in.

Liam had wanted to give in so many times himself but he didn't—couldn’t. Shouldn’t, anyway. But it was always right there, the edge. He knew why she lingered. He wished so much he could fix things for her and just make it easier for her again. 

And as for Whitney—

“Oh!” Hana jumped as Liam entered the kitchen.

“Oh!” Liam said. “I’m so sorry, Lady Hana. I didn’t mean to startle you...wait...are you washing dishes in the palace kitchen right now?”

Hana looked sheepish. “I had made some hot chocolate on the stove, with milk. You know, the good way. I hate seeing three little dishes in a great big sink. I honestly just couldn’t help myself.”

Liam silently searched inside of himself and realized that he, too, did not like the vision of three little dishes in a great big sink either. There was just something magical and musical about her, he thought. Drake could never say “three little dishes in a great big sink” and make it sound like the start of a Disney song; it would sound sarcastic coming from him, the kind of thing a person would hear before a plate drops and shatters.

“Thank you for caring about the kitchen dishes, Lady Hana,” Liam said. “I’m sure you have many secret admirers on the Royal kitchen staff.”

Hana blushed and looked even more beautiful. “Did you want some hot cocoa, Prince Liam?” 

“Sure,“ he said, tucking in. “I came down for some apple pie.” He paused. “Actually I came down here to run away from Olivia and Whitney.”

Hana laughed and filled Liam’s mug, topping it with marshmallows that seemed to have apparated out of nowhere. Who was this woman, he wondered.

“What have your experiences been like with the two of them so far?” He heard himself say. It was still technically polite, but nosy as fuck, he thought, but he wanted to hear what she would say. 

“Oh, just a day at the beach,” Hana said, picking up her own mug of hot cocoa. She strategically placed the mug in front of her mouth as she added, “with two pretty sharks in the water.”

Liam threw his head back and laughed. That took skill. Hana daintily laughed behind her mug in spite of herself.

“Would you like some apple pie, Hana?” Liam stood up and moved to the refrigerator.

“I love pie,” Hana said. “I’d be delighted.”


	17. Scarlet in the Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duchess Olivia Nevrakis’ innermost thoughts.

Olivia Nevrakis stormed off the palace grounds. She shouldn’t have stayed, she chastised herself.

After she balefully parted ways with Whitney Beaumont, Olivia had decided to stealthily follow Liam to the kitchen anyway, or at least, thereabouts. She wasn’t trying to stalk him, she told herself. She just desperately needed to know what he was doing and how he was feeling all of the time. It just so happened that stalking happened to be the most accurate and trustworthy way to gauge this information.

What he was feeling. Olivia smiled ruefully as she slid into Zenobia, her Scarlet Vanquish. She already knew all too well how Liam was feeling, particularly about her. Olivia started driving the long road back to Lythikos. It had been such a stupid, tiresome day that was completely beneath her skill set. Olivia hated the competition down to the core. This was absolutely insulting, being paraded around like some kind of prized pony with the rest when she was clearly a war horse in a league of her own. But he couldn’t see that.

Cocoa in the kitchen, she thought, and it stung all over again. Talk about a dark horse.

They had looked so cozy, and he needed that, she knew. He had looked so sad and lonely all day because Drake Outrageously Maddening Walker wasn’t there. To be fair, it sounded as if he had plenty of other concerns, she thought, but he had a duty to the prince as his best friend, badly as that she wished it could be her in his stead. And the worst part, Olivia thought as she pressed her foot on the gas, is that I can’t give that to him.

I can do a lot of things, Olivia thought to herself as she rounded the corner, accelerating. I know too many battle techniques to count. I’ve run an estate completely on my own for a long time. I’m an excellent waltzer.

But I cannot, she thought, pressing the gas again with her foot, for the life of me pull off cozy with any modicum of success. 

Lady Hana looked as if a flock of children could suddenly form around her at any moment, and she would instantly lead them in song they all knew the words to. Picture. Perfect. Queen.

Olivia liked children but also in the way she also liked cats: they were marvelous, but so delicate and fragile. Anything could happen, she thought, look at her. Five years old, everything’s great, then suddenly they were gone forever. She immediately wanted to teach them how to protect themselves like she learned, but she knew she needed to tone it down. She didn’t want to come off as unapproachable...

...but who could she trust?

Cozy cocoa kitchen wasn’t even all that actually happened today, she thought miserably. She shouldn’t even be focused on that right now. 

Madeleine showed up out of nowhere, to re-compete? She seriously wanted to be queen that badly that she would do this, especially to herself? Olivia still felt second-hand misery looking at Madeline’s always stoic expression. What was going on with her, Olivia thought. Why was this happening?

Regina was doing something, she knew, but what, exactly? What was the plan? Obviously some scheme was cooking, but how could she tell Liam that without coming off as desperate?

She drove to the palace that night, practicing all the way there about ten different breezy ways to say, “Let’s go out for ice cream.” She was having such difficulty pulling it off, she eventually realized, because she kept accidentally making it sound like an order. 

Finally she decided to just wing it—after all, that was the definition of spontaneity, was it not? And of COURSE Whitney is there and of course he looks like he’s thrilled to pieces because of course they share some kind of sexy history together...which of course, Olivia quite miserably thought, she did not share with Liam.

She had to figure something out, but she needed an ally, someone she could trust with her life if need be. Someone capable, she thought, like Madeleine, but she was out for very obvious reasons. Madeleine herself was somehow snared into all of this, though she knew not at what level. She tried not to think about her distant friend, trapped like a cornered animal by her own ambitions. Although, Olivia pondered, the same is probably true for me as well. 

An ally, Olivia thought. Who’s it going to be?


	18. The long shot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olivia finds an ally.

Olivia got out of Zenobia, her Scarlet Vanquish, and sighed. She readjusted her favorite leather jacket. It wasn’t as if she didn’t wear things like this outside of court—she did—and that was exactly no one’s business. She wasn’t here in Ramsford for pleasure, however. 

Mostly, anyway, she thought when she saw Drake walking towards her with his shirt off. 

“Howdy!” she said. Her face became the color of her hair almost instantly.

Drake also seemed to turn a shade of Olivia himself after that accidental friendly greeting. “Hi,” he managed. “Whatcha doing here, Fonzie?”

“Very funny,” she managed to give him a small smile. “I should very well be asking you the same question, Drake.” Olivia tried to look as neutral as possible when she wanted to grab him and howl, “Come home! Liam needs you terribly!”

She cleared her throat and raised her eyebrows at Drake meaningfully.

“I’m staying here,” he said, looking her directly in the eye. “Indefinitely,” he added. 

She wanted to smack him.

“What are you TALKING about?” she hissed. “You’re his best friend.”

“That’s exactly why I’m staying here. Because I want to ride this out and stay his best friend. That palace, and that woman, are not the place for me right now. I need to stay away from him, from that whole situation, Olivia.”

Olivia stared at Drake. She couldn’t believe how much she suddenly agreed with him, but was more remarkable—what she would look back on many times in the future when examining this pivotal moment in her life—was the feeling she got that Drake simply had more common sense than Liam. He was a good man. How had she not seen this before? She had known him almost her whole life and he had shown her nothing but kindness as children, even. But she never let him in. Why? Was she just so afraid to lose the one person, Liam, who seemed capable of loving her unconditionally even if it was strictly platonically thus far? 

Drake was silently staring at her. Think, girl, she told herself as she tried to guide her eyes up back to his face.

“I think you’re right,” she said, eyes resolute. “I would very much like you to please come have ice cream with me.”

“Olivia,” Drake said, genuinely shocked. Where was this coming from?

“I...” Olivia looked down at the ground and then back up at...back up at his FACE, she made herself, slower than she would have liked.

“Drake, I could really use a friend right now,” she said in a small voice. It certainly wasn’t false, at all, but she knew she played it to the rafters on purpose just a little for him. Not to manipulate him—just to make extra sure he would think about helping her. She tried to look as composed as possible while somehow appearing a little more meek than her usual demeanor. She did want his friendship, she realized. This wasn’t just a game.

Drake looked at her, softly. “No ice cream parlor in all of Cordonia is going to give me a chocolate cone with my shirt off,” he said. “But Maxwell and Riley just bought quite a bit of ice cream today at the store. Just for fun I guess.” He stopped and sort of smiled. “How about you come inside and have some and we can talk?”

“Drake,” Olivia said, realizing it was true the same time she was saying it, “I’d like nothing more.”


	19. Ice cream, you scream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ice cream at Ramsford.

Drake took a breath and opened the door. He glanced around as he opened it to get a good look around the room to know exactly what they were in for.

All five. Of course. Why wouldn’t they all be sitting together. They were all already so cozy too, he inwardly grumbled. He had never had cozy, not really, although his mother (and therefore, Savannah, he realized) made a hot toddy that was almost as good. 

So when Drake Walker stepped his right foot into the house, dear reader, he was not in the mindset that he was one of this brand new Fab Enough Four that had seemingly formed overnight after months—MONTHS—of lonely sleepless nights of his life ending at the bottom of one bottle or another. Drake, dear reader, felt just as much as Olivia in that moment the distinct feeling of being on the outside looking in and then stepping in from the outside begging the special insiders to please share the secret to the warmth.

“Hi,” he started. He tamped down the word everybody, he saw how well that one went over at the masquerade, like a lead balloon. 

One part of himself wanted to say, “Look what the cat dragged in,” I mean, it was right there. Practically wrapped up in a bow, he thought. 

But a much larger part of him that he had to tamp down more than anyone in the world could possibly know, since about the age of, oh, as long as he could goddamn remember, hoarsely whispered to himself, “No.”

Then the voice scared the crap out of Drake as he heard himself think, “Gotta follow this down.” He looked at Olivia. He had the shot. He was taking it.

“I know we haven’t all seen each other in awhile,” he started, as each eye in the room suddenly landed on him. Oh, great, thought Drake, just what I needed, more pressure. He didn’t know where this sudden steely resolve was coming from, but he pressed on, still trying to make that diamond happen for himself out of the coal in his hand somehow. “First I’d really like to make an important introduction.” He cleared his throat.

“Duchess Olivia Nevrakis,” he said in his most formal voice. He suddenly altered his stance and posture to match his tone. Two invisible, imaginary lightbulbs went off above the brains of Maxwell and Riley simultaneously and then burst. They didn’t even have to share a look. They could both feel it, and kept their eyes on the show.

“I’d like you to meet Lady Riley Brooks of the House Beaumont,” he finished with as much dignity and gravitas as he could muster.

Olivia couldn’t help her most powerful instincts at times. This was one of them.  
She glanced sideways at Drake and queried, “Of the House Beaumont? How exactly does that work?” 

“About as well as we want it to,” Maxwell suddenly piped up. Olivia looked at him and could barely recognize him, which was absurd, because he was physically unremarkable from the last time she had seen him (but he had not seen her) at the masquerade. But he seemed to be so much taller to her than her usually flawless memory served, and to her supreme surprise, she realized, he looked more happy and confident when she looked at him than he ever had since she first met this man as a child. 

Olivia smiled. “Well...that’s wonderful,” she genuinely said, trying with all her might to hide her envy and actually being a total success. 

Suddenly Olivia realized that every eye in the room had landed on her. Wonderful, she thought. “It is!” she asserted.

“I think so too,” Savannah turned to look at her from her cozy cocoa couch. How did they make cocoa too?! Olivia silently blustered to herself momentarily, until she remembered no one could lay a claim to hot cocoa because hot cocoa was for all. Theoretically, anyway. 

“Savannah,” Olivia said, and the warmth that her small smile lacked, she hoped, showed up in her eyes, she hoped. “It is so good to see you.”

Savannah Walker didn’t really care who knew that she did not like being the center of attention. “Everybody stop looking at me!” she suddenly hollered. 

They all did. 

Olivia cleared her throat. “Is this...baby Bartie?” she delicately asked the question.

“It is,” said Bertrand next to Savannah, whose cozy cocoa was mercifully sitting on a coffee table. He was holding Bartie in his arms about as delicately as Olivia asked about his son. He still needed to get used to those seemingly innocuous two words. It should only take about 27 more days, he thought as a comfort, to get into the habit completely. He looked up at Olivia. “Would you like to hold him?”

Olivia had to think fast. Of course she didn’t mind holding the infant, but she needed to hit the right tone, and right tones were so hard to hit when all she could see was red.

“Certainly,” Olivia said, and automatically sank into a nearby lounge chair. She looked at the arm. Did...she sighed inside her own mind as Bertrand placed Bartie into her arms. Did this chair seriously have soft, plush tentacles for arms?

He was a fine child, Olivia thought, resembling both parents equally. This was the highest praise she could muster for an infant who, not to put too fine a point on it, accomplished nothing outside of being born. That was an accomplishment in and of itself, Olivia reflected. But it didn’t ease the burden of her pulling a genuine compliment about the new child seemingly out of the sky. She would have to be spontaneous again, she supposed.

“He’s precious,” she managed, and she saw Drake beam out of the corner of her eye. Bullseye, she thought.

“I remember something about ice cream,” she said, turning to him with his nephew in her arms.

Bullseye, he thought.


	20. The Limit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dear reader, I’m sure you’ve noticed these chapters flying onto AO3 wonderfully erratically. I certainly know I have. This story has been with me through a lot. Hot cocoa and apple pie (Chapter 16) was written, by me, in an emergency room yesterday, here in the darkest timeline. I’m home-not out of the woods yet by any stretch of the imagination, but home. I can tell you from past experience how not fun it is to be chronically ill but I can also tell you with absolute certainty how not fun it is to write about being chronically ill, let alone read it as a reader. Let alone this overwhelming nightmare—which I proudly choose to escape from in this story by writing it. I’m so glad we are here together, me writing this, you reading this. I am more glad and grateful for you and your comments than you can ever possibly FATHOM. Please keep these things in mind for updates, which I hereby promise to continue to be wonderfully erratic for as long as I am able. Stir my soul, 2020...

Liam woke up. He smelled something weird...but not unfamiliar. He groaned. 

He looked at the alarm clock on the tiny marble table next to his King Sized bed (why not, they didn’t have Prince Sized, he had once whispered lasciviously to Whitney in this very spot that summer). It read 4:20 AM. He turned and looked at his private balcony window. He groaned again. He ran out to the balcony, still in his pajamas. 

“What are you DOING?” he frantically whispered to Whitney. 

Whitney took a long drag of her joint. She kissed him, breathing the smoke into his mouth. He immediately started coughing.

She handed him a bottle of yellow Gatorade. Lemon, he thought, as he gratefully swallowed. He had to catch his breath. He put his hand on the glass, regretting it instantly because he would need to clean the handprint he made off tomorrow. Hana briefly entered his vision. Wait, he thought quickly, why did Whitney have a bottle of Gatorade ready? How long had she been planning this?

WHAT WAS HAPPENING?

“You—“ he looked at Whitney with foggy eyes. “You are...the limit,” he finally managed. 

“Sit,” she instructed. He did as he was told, of course, instantly. 

He looked at her with wounded eyes as she sat down in front of him. “Whitney,” he finally said. “It can’t be the way it was before.”

She was as good as him at hiding it, he thought, as she blinked the tears away in front of him, so quickly he almost didn’t even catch it. “I know,” she said, with the shaky voice of someone trying desperately to hold it together while still being fun. “But it was so fun back then,” she said, with that beautiful cold fire in her eyes.

How could she look at him this way, in the state he was in, he miserably wondered. He wanted to scream. “It was,” he whispered. “But it’s for real now.”

“I know that,” she looked at him again. Damn those eyes. They were like searchlights shining directly into his soul. “Why do you think I came back for you, LP?”

Not LP, he thought even more miserably. Please don’t make me yearn for you any more than I already do, Whitney. It really isn’t fair, he thought.

“Why did you come back?” He was so stoned. He was such a lightweight. He reflected briefly to himself about how that certainly was different about the way things were before.

“Because I missed you,” Whitney said with all the sincerity she was capable of. 

Liam stammered. “I—I missed you too!” He started crying. “Why am I this stoned?” 

“Good thing I brought this,” Whitney said, holding up a glass of homemade chocolate milkshake. 

It really couldn’t be like the way things were before, Liam barely managed to keep the thought inside his head, because in old times, he would have screamed out “I love you, Whitney Beaumont” the way he always did when she always showed up at his balcony at this time with her weed and a milkshake to share. He trembled, trying to keep it together. Whitney was watching him. She knew this, he could feel it. He drank his milkshake. It was the best chocolate milkshake in the history of the universe. He savored each swallow. It burst with flavor. He was so high. Fuck.

He finished the milkshake. “How the fuck did you get in this time?” He earnestly wanted to know.

“Bastien is asleep,” she said, rolling his eyes. “He’s got those trick glasses on his face that look like his eyes are open in them and he’s completely conked out on his folding chair. Why does he have a folding chair?” Whitney started laughing hysterically. “Why...why does Bastien still work here for your dad?” 

Liam burst into laughter. “I don’t know!” He managed to finally say. It came out in a small joyful sort of yell. “I don’t know what’s going on at all!” Whitney saw his face change in front of her, from jubilant to his signature, heartbreaking sad smile, and wanted to die. I know that I can love you, Liam, she thought to herself, why won’t you let me?

“I think—“ Liam managed, struggling to his feet, “I have to go to bed now. Tomorrow...ugh. It’s already today.”

“I know,” she said gently. She guided him back to what she always secretly called in her heart as his Princely Bed. He climbed back into it as she walked back to the balcony door. Their eyes met before she closed it behind her. 

“Sweet dreams, sweet prince,” she said. She climbed over the edge of the balcony and hooked her grappling hook back onto the balcony’s edge for the climb down.


	21. Cloud City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maxwell’s thoughts during Scary Fun Ice Cream Time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cloud City: An Overanxious Addendum
> 
> Dear reader, I feel as though I am going out on a dangerous limb of art right now but this feels necessary to say.
> 
> Please, for me, take a very good, hard look at the first two or three paragraphs of this chapter.
> 
> Are they from something else?
> 
> I’ve always considered myself as “decently read,” and lately I’ve been finding myself more and more grateful to not be recently dead. 
> 
> Also though, I’m an overachiever. And decently read to me is probably outrageous to others depending on reactions I’ve got when I mention how often I go to the library, which branches I’ve tried thus far (gotta catch em all), and how many books I ended up reading last year. At this point even I don’t know because it’s multiple formats and the ones on the two different library apps, plus all the ones I got in the interlibrary loan system which is a national treasure that helped me complete Discworld in under a year. 
> 
> The paragraphs at the beginning of this chapter, Cloud City, might be from something else and I don’t know what. Can you please help me?
> 
> I’m glad to remove the paragraphs and start later in the chapter, exactly with Maxwell and his butter pecan. It changes nothing thematically. I really need to know though where this came from because I don’t think this was me. I remember being excited last year about something regarding Lando and showed my husband right away. Could it have been something like this? Could it have been in the ultimate deep dive of tumblr? An AU maybe? It could literally be any fandom. Cloud City is just that wonderful. It’s literally a city in the clouds.
> 
> I didn’t need these paragraphs. I was writing and in the middle of FLOW and the words went to me and I just RAN with it. It was one of those wonderful stretches of hours of writing it was hard to physically part from, always extremely unnerving. Chill out, brain, and slow down. The thoughts will still be there and you have time enough yet. Go get some sleep. 
> 
> It was early in the morning. I happened to be thinking of my mother in law and missing her a great deal. The tears, once again, hit my phone as I typed.
> 
> Ugh this is so embarrassing. Anyways. 
> 
> Dignity.
> 
> Thank you in advance for helping. I love a good mystery, don’t you? I hope this gets solved quickly so I can give credit to the author of whatever this is and remove the paragraphs. I can’t believe this actually happened to me, maybe.
> 
> There’s only so many ways to say something I guess. And I’ve always really loved Lando, for what it’s worth. 
> 
> Who could blame Lando? Darth Vader was standing right fucking there. Lando was just trying to make everything work and keep everyone safe. Luke still ended up losing that arm, though. It wasn’t Lando’s fault. None of it was.
> 
> I better go back to sleep and stop thinking about Star Wars.

Maxwell liked Star Wars quite a bit, although he admitted to himself sadly, never with the incandescent fervor he did when he was a ten year old boy. 

Maxwell’s favorite part in all of Star Wars was Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back. Cloud City, to Maxwell, seemed like the happiest place in the universe. Everyone was laughing, and having such a good time! Obviously Baron-Administrator Lando Calrissian was the coolest dude ever if he could make everybody laugh the way he did, Maxwell remembered thinking the day Bertrand had taken him to the movie by themselves. It was a Beaumont Brothers (Han) solo adventure that day. Of course, he thought, those were the only days they’d been having back then since his mother died, before he went to the bar with the guys and met his future wife. Completely left alone, to their own devices, except when they needed to be remonstrated for things they were inexplicably supposed to be somehow aware of. No wonder he loved Cloud City so much, Maxwell thought. 

After his mother died he liked to imagine her there, at a party, wandering in the background. Lando would think she was stunning, of course, but would only give her a respectful nod as she made her rounds. Goddamn it mom, he thought, I wish you could see how happy I am right now.

He took another spoon of butter pecan, his secret favorite flavor. Everyone always forgets how good butter pecan is, he thought to himself. 

Maxwell was thinking about Cloud City during Scary Fun Ice Cream Time, which seemed to get marginally less scary as the ice cream was being eaten and ideas were being shared and discussed around the Ramsford kitchen table. Plus Olivia was holding Bartie, which decreased her threat level by about 60 percent, Maxwell figured, accounting for the possibility that she could always have stashed some tiny baby knife on Bartie with some sleight-of-hand when he gave her the bowl of cotton candy flavored ice cream.

“Where did you even find such a confection?” she had said.

He tried to remember the last time she looked so genuinely content. He couldn’t.

“Sometimes you just have to look a little harder down the old ice cream aisle,” Maxwell said. “They have seasonal or limited time only flavors they change up now and then. Riley—“ he looked at her, and she smiled back—“even said she found a churro flavored ice cream one time.”

Olivia’s mouth matched the first letter of her first name.

Lando, Maxwell took another spoon, returning to his thoughts. Bertrand hadn’t shared his love for that character that day.

“You’re forgetting the most crucial part of the story, Maxwell,” Bertrand said as they discussed the movie on the way home. “Lando betrays his friends. They couldn’t trust Lando—shouldn’t have.”

But they were so happy, Maxwell wanted to say to Bertrand that day, but held back. He would have only scoffed in response. 

Later, much later, when Bertrand and he finally got around to watching Return of the Jedi, Maxwell was so happy that Lando helped the Rebel Alliance again. “He was good!” he remembered saying to Bertrand on the way home. “He stepped up!”

“He did,” Bertrand said thoughtfully. “He was also an effective general for someone previously only a Baron-Administrator, which I’m assuming they used instead of something like...Space Mayor.” Bertrand raised his eyebrow at Maxwell, who instantly laughed.

Maxwell was thinking on all of this as he sat eating ice cream with Riley and his friends. It was good conversation. Everyone was involved. Wheels were starting to turn and cogs were shifting into place. They were going to figure this all out together. What he needed to figure out, Maxwell thought, chancing a look at Olivia smiling down at Bartie, was what part of the trilogy Lando-Olivia was from.


	22. After the funeral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riley and Ethan, and angst.

Riley and Ethan silently walked back to the car from the cemetery. 

What’s wrong? she thought. How could he possibly say that to me today?

For starters, she thought, he woke up next to me this morning and asked me what’s wrong. As if he didn’t already know the answer, which has been absolutely consistent for a good week now of figuring out all of this cemetery stuff and insurance stuff and starting to sell her parents’ house, which was slowly, tortuously progressing, but the weight of her loss was tremendously paralyzing.

They had to stand there, today, and see two caskets side by side being lowered into the ground, forever. That was clearly on the agenda for today, she thought. Why did he ask me what was wrong? Did he leave his brain at Edenbrook?

She already knew the answer to that question, she thought bitterly. 

It wasn’t that she didn’t love him, she thought, smoothing out her dress while getting into the car. If she didn’t love him, if there wasn’t some part of Riley that would forever feel extra miserable about today, this would be so much easier. Riley steeled herself. She knew, for her own soul, it was now or never.

The ride home was quiet. He had held her hand in church. He held her close whenever she wanted him to, whenever she asked.

She even knew why he asked her what’s wrong when she sighed, waking up first thing in the morning next to him. He just meant, what else is wrong? He just wanted something a little smaller than my parents just died to fix. He wanted to start first thing, even. He was always thoughtful.

It couldn’t be easy, Riley reflected sadly, waking up next to someone you loved who started the day with a long, frustrated sigh like she did before the day even properly began. 

Who could blame her? Who would even try?

She knew he was working on something big and noble at Edenbrook. She forgot what. She didn’t mean to sound cruel, she thought, but she buried her parents today. It just wasn’t important anymore.

Dr. Ethan Ramsey was a very generous man, Riley knew. Big philanthropist. On some special boards or something, she forgot which, there were more than several. Everyone was constantly asking for his advice—rightly so, but it was so exhausting being with someone who constantly had to tell others what he thought, then got back to you and then got quiet for an hour, lost in some puzzle or ghost. It didn’t matter what about—one case, or another. There would always be more hospital, more patients. 

She hated herself ferociously for doing this already.

They got out of the car. They got in the house. 

“Hey, come sit with me,” Riley began. 

Ethan turned and looked at her, stricken at once. He sat, sinking slowly onto his own couch.

Riley was quiet for a long time. It was the loneliest time of her entire life, lonelier than the insurance lady on the phone politely ignoring her weeping while following up with a denied claim, lonelier than the call she got telling her, suddenly, that her parents were dead, forever. 

“I’m moving to New York,” she said. She burst into tears. Immediately, Ethan held her. They sat there, seemingly forever, him holding her, her sobbing. 

There was nothing left in Boston for Riley Brooks after the car accident. She just didn’t even want to be in the same zip code as her entire life that just got ripped out of her hands. She would never see them again. She didn’t want to see any of Boston, either. 

Reluctantly, Riley parted with Ethan. They both knew this was the end. “I’m sorry,” Riley said.

Ethan cupped the side of her face with his right hand, and Riley leaned into it for the very last time. They both knew. She stood up. 

He looked up at her, completely defeated on his own couch. “I’m really going to miss you, Riley,” he said.

She couldn’t believe she was doing this to him, to them. She could stay, she thought. She could keep trudging through, forgetting what mattered to herself while losing him to his work at every turn. She could throw herself into her grief, perhaps? Somehow? In this city overloaded with every memory of her life—every memory of them that she had?

“How long are you going to be over there?” 

Riley looked at Ethan. “I don’t know,” she said, “I’m not sure, yet.”


	23. The Duke of Ramsford

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bertrand would like Drake to put his shirt on now.

Bertrand sat beside Savannah, not daring to move, not even daring to breathe. He had no possible idea in Cordonia how he was supposed to approach this situation.

He was referring to, of course, dear reader, the fact that Drake Walker had inexplicably chosen to remain shirtless the total entirety of what Bertrand was beginning to privately refer to himself (and later, the world) as the Ramsford Roundtable First Summons. 

Dear Lord, Bertrand thought to himself, as his future brother in law mindlessly, absently scratched his chest for what must have been the three hundred and ninety fourth time in an hour, by Bertrand’s estimation. This is obscene.

He supposed he should have said something when Walker had walked in, but who in their right mind would dare to utter a sound when Bertrand’s secret, never would have told anyone, one-in-a-million chance couple he always waited for to potentially develop, (watching his brother and his friends grow up, it was Waterford Crystal-clear to Bertrand the two always seemed to have that elusive, je ne sais quoi chemistry) walked into his front door, suddenly looking very, very much like a couple. Or at least, Bertrand thought, as Drake himself might say, a hot mess. What had transpired between the two of them? Why was the fierce and formidable Duchess Olivia Nevrakis wearing a greaser jacket like some kind of a ruffian?

“Would never have told anyone,” was not exactly true, he thought to himself. There had been one person he shared his favorite romantic pairing with from time to time. When everyone else was asleep, and they had been drinking together. My word, Bertrand thought for a second, how could I ever, ever forget that Savannah is the most enjoyable drunk I know? He sat, quickly remembering about two or three out of countless nights they had spent. Her candor. Her expressions and impressions. And the swearing, her glorious, glorious swearing.

Bertrand Beaumont knew Savannah to be a Lady since the day they had met, as children, and she curtsied perfectly in front of him. How could he forget that, Bertrand thought to himself. He never had. He thought about it quite often, actually. Sometimes while holding and looking at his son.

When the cars had met, finally, at the Ramsford Estate the night of Bertrand Beaumont’s best homecoming in the entirety of his life, he noticed Savannah as she gracefully extracted herself from the alleged truck, only stumbling just a touch. Bertrand didn’t care—in fact, he was thrilled. She’s back, he thought in the innermost secret layers of his heart, my Whiskey Angel.

What words existed between Bertrand and Savannah that night? And every day and night since? Plenty, thought Bertrand, gratefully. “Any” was unthinkable last week. And here he sat. With Savannah, and their son.

He desperately wanted to marry her. He had, ever since the MOMENT of that first curtsy. Every second they sat watching Savannah’s baby brother yawn and stretch, along with he noticed, Olivia, was tortuous in the way that they weren’t ALREADY married. But he had to strategize. He had to hit the mark. He hoped his arrow, as always, struck true. Cupid’s certainly had, he thought proudly. Look at this room. His little band of misfit court orphans that he always looked after and loved were finding love themselves—and so, blissfully, blessedly, was he.

As the plans developed and formed, Bertrand Beaumont focused on the heady discussion, heady because of the level of intelligence of the group as a whole and the sheer amount of formidable people in the room he knew he could trust. 

In between, of course, quietly saying his prayers and wondering when his future brother in law, the long shot, last applied deodorant. That man, to borrow a most delightful phrase from the love of his life, was sweating like a sinner in church.

Good, thought Bertrand. Atta boy.


	24. A Prince’s Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prince Liam’s NICE DREAMS.

Liam stood perfectly still in the middle of a clear blue stream in some forest of Cordonia. He looked around, slowly. He looked up.

The sky was pitch black. Then, silently, the lanterns came. Liam sat down in the water. He watched the lanterns as they danced across the sky only for him. Finally, he thought. Something that is mine and mine alone.

They came, soaring, in every color of the rainbow. I wish I was a lobster, Liam thought as a magenta-turquoise lantern caught his eye and flew away. Is this...a dream? Am I still high...in my dream?

He blinked.

Whitney was standing before him, towering over him. She had her hair long, like that summer. It was in a braided updo. He LOVED braided updos! Her dress was pale pink, exquisitely feminine. She wore a handcrafted rose floral tiara. She looked...so REGAL!

He knew it was only a dream. What did he care. “Aoooooooooooooooooo!” He stood up and howled, throwing his head back, eyes open to the night sky. The lanterns continued to dance across. He looked back at Whitney.

“I’m so bored, Liam,” she said. Then she vanished. Not again, he groaned inside.

“YA!”

Liam turned around, shifting his bare feet in the clear blue water. He saw her, and his eyes widened.

Lady Hana rode in hard on a white horse. She raised her sword in her right hand as her Appaloosa charged across the valley between them. She looked magnificent, and powerful. Liam gaped as he noticed her Stormholt elite armor, with the exquisite silver detailing. She looked legendary, and WORTHY, Liam thought, the word hitting him like being smacked in the face by Mjolnir itself. 

“Whoa,” she said gently as she approached, and the horse came to a slow stop several feet away from Liam’s place in the stream. Hana sheathed her sword and as she climbed down from her horse, Liam could still see more lanterns flying across the blackest sky.

Some inner feeling inside of him made him turn around. He did.

Up in the sky, where the lanterns floated, a golden chariot that appeared to be aflame majestically drove through the lanterns, up and away. The chariot rode two people, but Liam had to be dreaming within a dream to come up with this one, he thought. Then he realized it really was them. It makes sense, he thought. I think I saw that all along, too.

His phone woke him up. It was Drake.


	25. Jungle Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dear reader,  
> The following THIRSTY chapter is rated one tall drink of water.  
> Enjoy!

Drake followed Olivia down the stairs, into the lower level of the Ramsford Estate. It had been hours since they had spoken outside. Much had been discussed. Much had been planned. Much more had been accomplished. 

And yes, dear reader, Drake still had his shirt completely off. 

It’s not like he had planned it. He had been taking a walk in the vineyards before, just as her car rolled up. Maxwell had been the one who had advised him to do so.

“It always gives me clarity,” Maxwell had said, and Savannah was sitting, listening nearby and nodded too. There was that stupid word again, Drake had thought in that lonely moment where he once again felt so completely out of place. Clarity. God, he needed some, bad.

It got hot. That was it. It wasn’t part of some kind of evil plan, some multi-step seduction scheme. He’d had none of those, he thought, not in any of the years he had known her. He almost wanted to laugh, he thought. Me, seduce her? The Scarlet Duchess? He might as well saddle up a jaguar and try to ride.

But the energy between the two of them had been building all day long as he sat, with his shirt off, and she sat, staring at him. He caught her at it at least three separate times, and each time she started immediately fussing with that hair of hers as if that was what she had been doing all along. 

He didn’t know, at first, why he didn’t want to just leave the room and put a shirt on—any shirt at all, even a puffy pirate shirt would have been treasured, particularly by Bertrand, who seemed to be having the start of some kind of nervous episode any time Drake moved. Not to mention the Duchess herself was getting visibly hot and bothered.

First he didn’t want to leave, he remembered, because they had just come in, and he didn’t want to leave her alone with them and risk her getting spooked. She had that look about her. 

His red mare. He stared at that hair of hers as she walked down the steps in front of him. How he had longed, desperately, to be her wild stallion. 

Stop that, he told himself, genuinely getting nervous. 

Then Drake remembered, cringing at himself once again, that it had just gotten way too weird at that point for him to leave and come back with a shirt. He had taken too long, the ice cream was long finished and cleaned up, and so he had decided to just lean into it. No one had said anything. They were the nicest people in all of Cordonia, he realized, not for the first time that day.

Finally, they reached the lower level, where a good variety of guest rooms were. The Ramsford Roundtable First Summons had adjourned, for now, to let every participating player get the rest they needed for the tasks they still had yet to face. The Estate was teeming with nervous energy.

She hadn’t chosen a room, he couldn’t help but notice. 

She stood, still as stone. He did the same.

The most likely thing is, he thought, she’s going to come back to her senses, keep on walking, and close one of those doors behind her. She’s just cooling her heels right now. That’s it, he told himself. 

Time passed. Drake realized this, and the fact that it was just like him and his damn shirt being off all damn day today. He was going to have to do something this second before it was too late and he ended up stuck by his own overthinking and indecision.

“Olivia.” He said her name as it was, a fact. A constant, living connection of power between man and earth, that perfectly represented its bearer. 

Drake heard Olivia shakily exhale.

I knew it, he thought, suddenly enlivened and terrified all at once. He couldn’t spook her. Not now. This was it. She turned around slowly. He tried to think. It was so important to get to the point with her when talking. He had always tried to be respectful of her time. He probably only had one sentence before she completely made up her mind forever. He had to make this one count. What did she need to hear the most right now? What did he need to tell her, after so long?

She stared at him.

“I love you,” he said, simply. He looked her straight in the eye. He didn’t whisper it. He knew she heard it.

Something flashed and sparkled inside of her eyes as she stepped forward. 

If Drake Walker, dear reader, could hear the inside of Olivia’s mind at this moment, he would be shocked at the volume but would recognize at once the significance of the sound. 

No one in the history of time ignored or misinterpreted the Nevrakis battle war cry, berserkers all, howling at the top of their lungs, clanging their swords against their shields. 

She smiled.

They crashed together, kissing each other as if they had been wandering in the desert all day and the other was water. He tried to remember every moment of this. He could barely even think.

Somehow they managed to get into a room and lock it behind them. He kissed her, up against the wall. He leaned his hand on the wall for support and pressed his body firmly against hers as she responded to him eagerly. He never imagined, in any of the late nights he dared against any real hope he had, that this would ever be this hot. The little noise she had made when he placed his hands on her hips and pulled her body gently toward his had driven him absolutely insane. She was a hellcat. A temptress. She was capable of such warmth, such heat. He felt like he was going to burn alive.

He picked her up, supporting her, gently and firmly. He carried her to the bed. Years later, whenever remembering this moment, it would always inspire such warmth in Drake that it could melt nearly all the snow in Lythikos.

He laid her down and crawled on top of her and they kept kissing, blissfully. This was the clarity he needed, he realized, and all he had to do to get it was say the hardest thing there was to say in that moment.

Urgently, there needed to be less clothes.

The leather jacket found the floor as well as her shirt. Her pants slid down, quickly, and she kicked them off the bed in one fluid motion. They kept kissing. He couldn’t get enough of her. This was all he ever wanted.

She wrapped her legs around him and ground herself against him, arching her back. He gasped.

“What do you want, Duchess?” he growled in her ear, and she gasped, in spite of herself. She blushed, deeply. He already knew. He just wanted to hear it.

“I want you, Drake,” she whispered. 

He unbuckled his belt. His pants and Jack Daniels boxers slid to the floor. She cocked her eyebrow at him and smiled, unclasping her bra expertly and throwing it on the ground. Drake helped her with her panties, sliding his thumbs inside by each hip and gently pulling them down. In one motion, he pulled them down the rest of the way with one hand and placed his two fingers exactly where she needed him most. She threw her head back and moaned. He kept going. She looked back at him. They stared at each other without breaking eye contact. They were completely immersed in each other’s bodies.

Olivia could not believe how good Drake was at this. Her hips bucked against his hand as she pressed her hand on top of the one that was working her so...GOOD. 

They moaned together. She was absolutely about to lose control. She leaned her forehead into Drake’s neck and screamed his name. I can die happy, he thought to himself.

Drake found himself missing Olivia terribly for about five seconds as they moved their hands away together, kissing. Then he slowly pushed his cock deep inside of her. They both moaned. This was unreal, he thought. He set a fair pace, and she kept pushing him, challenging him at every turn with her body to go faster, harder, deeper.

Only a Nevrakis would consider sex as a duel, Drake thought, in between the most amazing feelings of his entire life.

Olivia felt supported and loved right away with Drake. He had made it so easy for her, she thought. It was so easy to love Drake and be loved by him. She realized she hadn’t told him how she felt yet. She screamed it as she came again. He completely lost control.

After, Drake laid back down and Olivia placed herself against his chest delicately. They gazed into each other’s eyes. Drake wondered if a Nevrakis could be a competitive cuddler, too. He soon found out the answer was a definitive yes.

It was morning, suddenly, far too soon. They woke up, together, gently gazing into each other’s eyes. They both smiled. They got up and got dressed.

“Do you have your phone synchronized?” Olivia said over her shoulder. 

“Yes,” Drake said. “Is it time to call him?”

Olivia looked at her watch for exactly thirteen seconds. Then she looked at Drake.

“Yes. Now.”


	26. The Apple Gambit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when you don’t have a human alarm clock?

Whitney Enid Beaumont woke up with a start in her bed at the palace. Oh no, she instantly thought with alarming dread at seeing how bright it was in her room. She looked at her phone. She ran to the shower, FAST.

There was no way she was going to make it in time otherwise. She had to do it.

She turned on the tap. She only ran it briefly and, after vigorously rubbing soap on a washrag along what she referred to as the sweet spots, turned it back on and rinsed, again. Some Future Queen, she chided herself, standing there giving yourself a Whitney Bath and trying to dress fancy. 

She knew she would never be good enough. This was her one, last chance. She had to try, anyway. She had to see if it would take. 

He was her King Dom. How could he not be, she said, blinking back tears as she tried in vain to put on her earrings without shaking violently. Would Liam ever, ever let her be his Queen Kenna?

Why hadn’t they been here to wake me? She miserably thought as she stumbled, trying to jump into her dress and almost ripping it in the process. She couldn’t concentrate. She was supposed to be there, and be fun, RIGHT NOW.

The dress she had landed on wasn’t even that great of shakes, she thought. Some little plain number that was instantly forgettable on anyone else and was even tan of all colors, but her curves did give the gown more credit than credit was due. There were no accoutrements, none of her usual flourishes of fancy. She was barely hanging on here, and she needed every angle she could think of to produce some kind of result for her already. 

No one was still here. It was just her, and Bastien, “standing guard” at the door, reeking as usual of gin. She gave him a sarcastic salute and he returned it earnestly, and then she felt terrible. He was trying his best, she guessed, but why did his best have to be so mediocre?

“It seems you’ve let the spectacle pass you by,” Bastien said spookily, like an old nutjob.

Ugh, I take it all back, Whitney thought, he’s just plain awful.

She didn’t even get to dress the way she wanted to, the way she felt most free in, she thought, stepping into the private car. She needed her fashion battle armor. She was riding into war naked here.

The car slowed as it approached the Nevrakis Manor. Whitney slid out of the car and stood up slowly, staring at the sheer magnificence of the fortress.

This was the one she had told Bertrand about, she thought, miserably.

When she agreed last minute to drop literally everything—she, the Lady Dancer, as Roxie Hart in Chicago for community theater, which she had always wanted to do and finally won the role as only to sadly decline in tears—to help her family, Bertrand had promised her they would help her through this House and all of the intrigue. And here she stood, as always, utterly alone.

Whitney had a good bark when it came to little moments with quips at court but she was genuinely terrified of Olivia Nevrakis. The woman was the most formidable creature she ever laid eyes upon. Olivia had Whitney’s utmost respect, she thought sadly. She had wanted to have hers in return, so much. That was a lost cause more than her being known anywhere outside her own heart as Queen Whitney.

She hadn’t meant for any of the bad things to happen that summer. She had wanted to stay so badly. Leaving last time nearly killed her. She had spent the entire plane ride home crying.

Walking toward the estate, an unfamiliar man quickly walked up to her, smiling.

Whitney’s first impression was that he looked a little douchey. Horn rimmed glasses and slicked back hair was not her type, not even close. This guy was slimy. No thank you.

“Lady Whitney!” he stopped before her. “I’ve been instructed to lead you to the armory immediately upon your arrival.”

“And you are?” Whitney tried not to say it too rudely but this guy was too much. He talked like a slightly-off train announcer.

“Justin,” he said, “Follow me, please.”

She followed him. “Justin what, exactly?”

He glanced at her for the briefest moment. “Most people don’t ask Justin what, it’s usually more like I’m there for them...Justin...CASE.” He did that awkward smile, pulling his cheeks far too high to really sell it. 

“Hah,” she managed, miraculously.

“Did you say the armory?” Whitney trailed a little behind this Justin No Last Name Given, thinking.

“That’s right,” said Justin, looking behind. “Do try to catch up. I’ll be happy to show you the way.”


	27. The Bad Vision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whitney angst.

If Whitney had felt ill at ease walking behind Justin No Last Name Given’s axe body spray cloud, it was nothing compared to the frosty reception that awaited her when she stepped through the doorway of the Nevrakis armory. 

What is everyone’s problem today, Whitney thought as she scanned the faces for a friendly expression and coming up short. What had happened? Weren’t they just standing together laughing at the Masquerade? Everyone was as serious as—

She gasped. 

It was a bad vision. The once respected and loved Constantine, no longer King, sat before her, she finally noticed, in chains.

He said nothing. 

Maxwell caught Whitney’s eye. He motioned with the slightest tilt of his head, and the two left the room together. Bertrand trailed close behind.

They stopped down the hall.

“...” Whitney had no clever retort. She just wanted to go back in and hold Liam. She hadn’t noticed his face and hated herself for it.

Maxwell, eyes wide, expression fearful, held his hands up in front of Whitney as if he was telling her to stop. What the hell was going on in Cordonia? She was nearly at her breaking point.

“There’s been a lot of large changes in a small amount of time,” Bertrand said as softly as he could. “King Liam, with the help of the Ramsford Roundtable First Summons, initiated a hostile takeover of the Kingdom of Cordonia today.”

“Hostile takeover?!” Now she was really lost. “A country’s not a business, Bertrand.”

Now Bertrand, unbearably to Whitney, looked a little lost. “There’s not a large amount of precedence in Cordonian law for what just occurred. I may have to recheck the 1600s for myself to properly define it. What stands is this: Constantine is no longer King. Liam stripped him of every title and property. He will be tried and jailed.”

Whitney didn’t have to ask what for. She already knew. No one had wanted to doubt their King’s word, but what good did his word mean against the strength of his son’s?

How could he do that to her, she screamed inside her own head. How could he sit and pretend for years it wasn’t him all along? How could he take his son’s mother away from him?

Whitney felt like the room was spinning. “I want to see Liam,” she said, desperately. “How are they going to handle all of this at the competition events here today?”

It was an honest question with a devastating answer.

Bertrand and Maxwell both knew this was going to be a very hard moment. 

“Actually, Whitney,” said Maxwell. “The competition...has been declared no longer relevant by Order of the King.”

“Good, take me to see him, he needs me,” Whitney said. This simplified things so much, she thought. No more bobbing for apples and building barns. He must have decided to decide for himself.

“No...Whitney,” Bertrand looked at her not understanding them with tears in his eyes. He hadn’t realized when he asked, he thought in that terrible moment. He couldn’t have possibly conceived she even still thought of Liam that way. He felt so sorry for his cousin.

Whitney sank to the floor, gasping for air. Why had she come back, she thought. What was it all even for?


	28. Who Did He Choose?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whitney tries to get it together.

“Whitney!” Bertrand, at once, reached his arms out to her to help her. Maxwell did the same. Together, they found her a stool.

Whitney looked down at the chair she found herself sitting on. The legs were made of stilettos. Of course they were, she said to herself, remember? You’re in Lythikos right now. Whitney was so stricken by the fact that she actually completely forgot where she was. She felt like she was freefalling into a bottomless pit.

“How...” she started, then stopped herself, knowing she couldn’t possibly say aloud “How could he not pick me?” and instead went with the equally agonizing but slightly more dignified, “Who was the lucky one?”

“I’m going to go get a glass of water,” Bertrand announced, voice faltering. Whitney’s heart broke as she heard him loudly gasp and then sniff when he walked away.

Maxwell looked at his cousin, tears falling down his face. “I’m so sorry this happened to you,” he said. “I’m so sorry that all of this happened so fast all once.”

Somehow looking at Maxwell’s face made Whitney instantly feel better. It wasn’t because he was crying. It was just so nice that he and Bertrand both had actually cared and tried, even if they had let her down. It was never going to happen, she thought, before she stopped herself, before the tears came back and overwhelmed her completely. Not now. 

What was going on with the two of these brothers? What had been the path that had led them from Ramsford to Lythikos that had resulted in Constantine in chains? She shivered.

“I don’t even know what to ask besides that, Maxwell. Please, who’s going to marry him?”

His heart broke for her all over again. “Lady Hana,” he answered, simply. 

“Oh.” Whitney said. She wanted to scream, “REALLY?” She didn’t dare.

She stood up, steadied. “What do I do now?” she said.

Immediately Maxwell thought of her the last time she walked through the estate before leaving Cordonia for home that summer. Bertrand had escorted her to a private car, kindly, but firm. He was very unhappy.

Each of them involved in the events of that summer and the aftermath always referred to it as “That summer,” but the truth was no decently sized summer was ever as short as three weeks and two days. That was Whitney, he thought. She had no longer been allowed to stay the intended three months. Not even close. Her invitation had been rescinded, and when Maxwell had asked Bertrand if it was kind of like vampires, Bertrand just sighed for a very long time, so Maxwell went out to the pen and talked to his peacock friends for awhile.

And now here they were again. Everything over, suddenly.

Maxwell wanted to tell her to stay, the way Bertrand would, but it didn’t feel right. How could he ever order her around like that? She must feel like garbage already and then I’m going to tell her what to do? No, she should make up her own mind.

“Do you want to stay?” Maxwell went with.

“I don’t know what I want to do right now at all,” she said. The tears came and this time she turned and walked away from her cousin. She walked down the hall and tried to compose herself to the best of her ability as she made her way as gracefully off property as she could manage. 

She got all the way down to the giant front topiary shaped like a guillotine. Why does Olivia have this, she thought absently. It should clearly be shaped like a frost touched rose.

“Hello again,” Justin appeared from behind the guillotine. Whitney didn’t have time for this. Not today. This was the worst day of her life.

Then she noticed the knife.


	29. She looked happy enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Justin’s game begins...

Whitney Beaumont grasped desperately for the car door handle behind her and opened it on her second try.

Justin had led her, menacingly with that knife of his, away from the estate into the backseat of a car parked in the middle of a vacant field covered in snow. Their feet had crunched together across it, almost exactly at the same time. As if it was only one pair of feet for anyone who could possibly listening.

Who was this shithead, Whitney thought, nearly blind with rage, indignation and grief all at once. Wasn’t this day hard enough? And now this?

He didn’t look at her. 

He pulled a file out from the car’s pocket in front of him, located on the back of the car’s first row seat. It wasn’t that thick, Whitney thought, surprised at how legitimately disappointing this all was. She prepared herself, once again, somehow, for the inevitable onslaught of Whitney Beaumont, Tops in Taps, and her Latest and Greatest Hits. Same old story, Whitney thought to herself, I’m just no good. Here we go.

Justin opened the file grandly, with a flourish. Clearly, thought Whitney, he thinks this is my first dressing down. Cute. 

“Whitney Enid Beaumont,” he said with that fakey fake shithead voice of his. Whitney could spot a fake affectation a mile away. This guy’s voice would make plastic curl up and burst into flames. He cocked an eyebrow at Whitney. “Enid,” he said, as if it was a type of insect.

“It means ‘life,’“ Whitney snapped. She couldn’t help herself.

“It means hick,” Justin hissed back at her. “Even that former waitress in there belongs here more than you do. The sad tale of the poor little rich girl, Whitney Enid Beaumont,” he said, making sure to pronounce Enid the same exact way he had before. “The dancer from Oklahoma and the Lower Lord Rear Admiral who came together and made you. The star-crossed lovers. Is that what you told yourself?“ He laughed, and Whitney tried to control her anger. He has a knife, remember, she told herself, and steadied. 

“After THAT crashed and burnt, you bounced around from school to school,” he said, pretending to read the file sheet. Why is he doing that? Whitney wondered. This already sounds so practiced and memorized. This guy was so low-rent that he made me climb into a fucking Escalade. Then he looked up at her, as if he knew what she was thinking, and closed the file. 

“Sorry to bore you, your ladyship,” he said. With his face betraying nothing, Justin punched her, HARD, jabbing her expertly in her lower left side. She gasped and terror flooded every sense. She was terrified for several seconds until she realized, no, she had not been stabbed. He just hit her, that hard.

“That should be safe enough,” Justin said, rubbing his hand’s knuckles lightly with his other hand while she struggled to maintain breathing. He smiled right into her face. “Our pretty Lady’s got to stay pretty after all.”

Whitney could not deal with how creepy and weird this guy was. He was clearly unhinged, but he dressed well enough to make up for it. Why was he here? 

“This is your second competition,” he said, looking directly into her eyes. “This one that just ended was the official one, though. The first was totally unofficial. It almost sounded like a set-up!” He scoffed. “You lost that one, too, whatever it was. You lost it all. Everything.”

She knew what he wanted her to say. She sighed through her clenched teeth. Why did these guys with knives in her life always need her to say this? She wanted to roll her eyes but didn’t dare, still feeling her left side’s agony. 

“What do you want from me?”

Justin smiled. “Atta girl. I want you to shut up, and I want you to pay attention.”  
—————

Maxwell and Bertrand returned to everyone still sitting together in the Armory just as the Cordonian police detectives led Constantine out and began their walk off the estate. 

The mood of the room was very somber. No one had wanted this. Everyone had known, sitting there during the planning, this was not what was supposed to happen to Cordonia. But, Bertrand reflected, it had to be done, and Liam had certainly stepped up.

They all looked at each other silently. It was a heavy day for their country. How did it all come to this?

“I know this was dreadful,” Bertrand spoke to the room. “But you have all served your country well today, and I am very proud of you.”

As the mood of the room lifted and his friends began to slowly smile at him, Bertrand realized he never had to play “Which Does He Need?” again for the rest of his life. He realized now standing before all of them that had known which all along. He just got stuck.

“Our work is not done,” said Bertrand. “Not by a long shot. The original competition tour is cancelled, obviously, but it will be repurposed as an Engagement Tour in the days to come. All of us, as loyal servants to Cordonia, must make the wedding of King Liam our number one priority.”

Olivia stood from where she was sitting. A half-moment later, Drake stood beside her. Everyone turned.

Bertrand suddenly forgot to breathe. He froze. It couldn’t be.

“It is now time,” Duchess Olivia declared to the room, “to make this announcement to all.” She looked at Drake, who looked back for just a second, then they looked at all of their friends with determination in their eyes, daring them to challenge what came next.

The held hands. Bertrand gasped.

“It will be a double wedding,” Olivia announced.

The room exploded with emotion. Immediately Bertrand ran up to them, weeping and screaming, “I knew it!” Maxwell and Riley cheered. Savannah screamed and threw her hands up in the air, happiest tears of all in her eyes. It was the happiest moment in any of their lives thus far.

“Hello, everyone,” Justin said, standing at the doorway with a very stoic looking Whitney. 

“Justin!” Bertrand said. “Whitney! You’ve met.”

“I was just updating Whitney on the recent developments and we were discussing next steps. Obviously you won’t be needing my services after all, but Whitney thought my services might be better equipped helping her in a different capacity instead.”

“Oh?” Bertrand said. 

“Whitney was considering philanthropic efforts she could make on behalf of House Beaumont and I’d be happy to show her the ropes.”

“That’s wonderful!” Bertrand said. “More happy news to celebrate this moment among all the madness of today. Duchess Olivia has announced her engagement, just now, to Drake Walker.”

Justin smiled politely. “Best wishes,” he said to them.


	30. Double Wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Armory, and all of its current celebrations and secret schemes.

Maxwell’s ears began to vibrate and hum just after the two words left Olivia’s lips. 

Pride and Prejudice, he thought, as he cheered out loud with Riley. The two sisters and best bonnet friends forever, Jane and Elizabeth Bennett decide, after all of their bothersome troubles, to get married on the same day to their respective beloveds. He remembered that passage of the book as being so pleasant, feeling a sudden lump in his throat as he celebrated with his friends, because their mother had been so excited and hopeful for their futures.

He turned and saw Bertrand staring at him, red-eyed and puffy faced, but stern eyebrows all the same.

He knew, whatever it was, it wasn’t about Bartie. The two had talked on that already and that discussion, dear reader, remained private and between them. Bartie was never an issue between the brothers at all. The matter, as far as the brothers were concerned, was over, and the two continued as before, albeit slightly closer.

It was about something, though, he knew, and he couldn’t place it. 

But then, staring at his brother, he realized he already had.

They nodded at each other, somehow at the same time. There was no rush. They would do it up special, together.

He thought of Whitney again, and looked her way. He felt miserable for her all over again, especially thinking of her so unhappy among the overwhelming joy of the entire Armory. He couldn’t get a good read on her based on looking at her face.

Whitney had always been the grand master of the masquerade. Even when they were young. Maybe even especially when they were young, that summer.

“It’s theater,” Whitney had said then, sitting at the piano as usual. That had been her catchphrase and go-to excuse all of that tiny little summer of hers here, singing and playing that music of hers and driving every boy he knew crazy. No matter what it was she was trying to do, she needed to do it, because it was theater.

Maxwell remembered that conversation well, because he had been the one in it, knowing that she was wrong. She just hadn’t been able to accept it then. He wondered if she ever did.

Maxwell couldn’t possibly know this, dear reader, for no one in the world did except for Whitney. She had known that she was completely wrong about the masquerade of court and its meaning, and her first and everlasting love of theater’s place in it the day she was sternly asked to leave it. But how had it dragged her back in, now! 

Whitney, for what felt like the thousandth time that day, tried earnestly to get a grip. She couldn’t even think about Drake and Olivia yet. She immediately sorted that into the file in her brain labeled, “PROCESS LATER.”

Now THAT, she thought admiringly, that was a thick file.

Wait, she thought. Olivia. I need her to help me, now. 

She wasn’t about to announce that to the room, though...especially next to the sociopath she had at her side.

This Justin guy, man, Whitney thought...nope, put it in the file. Gotta keep moving. Think of a plan, dammit.

Come ON, Universe, she tried to will some kind of strategy of any kind at all into existence, while tepidly smiling at the happy, happy faces that she was surrounded by. Throw me a bone, I’m a Beaumont, for crying out loud.

“Whitney,” Riley said, coming over to her. “I don’t think I got a chance yet to thank you myself for stepping up on account of me.”

Okay, thought Whitney. I can work with this. Just gotta use the light touch. 

I can’t know what this Justin guy really knows, she also thought.

Whitney grabbed Riley’s hands in a friendly goodwill gesture between female House members, and also because she was genuinely glad for being thanked for her time. 

And, of course, the plan.

“I’m so glad,” she said earnestly to Riley, “that you are here.”

Riley felt Whitney’s pinky finger tap the inside of her palm twice, almost urgently, she noticed. Then she felt Whitney push her pinky up and then curve it to the right. 

“Is it usually this crazy?” Riley said, making Whitney laugh. Riley felt the pinkie tap twice again inside her palm. Then, up down, up down. 

“Mmm, this is a Tuesday,” said Whitney, smiling away. She pulled her hands back to her sides. “I’ll see you round like a donut, girl.” She stepped out of the room. Justin, after a few moments, followed.

Riley stood, watching after Whitney. 

“Hey,” Maxwell said, “how’s tricks?” 

“I think your cousin may have been just trying to tell me something covertly just now,” Riley said in a lowered voice. Ethan had shown her this emergency victim communication technique so long ago, but it had stuck with her. She knew that they were letters supposed to spell out something.

Maxwell took Riley aside more from the others and whispered. “Do you know what it was?”

“I don’t know,” said Riley. “Do the letters R and W mean anything to you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is a truth universally acknowledged that Maxwell Beaumont read Pride and Prejudice and enjoyed it well enough when he was in high school. 
> 
> His favorite Bennett sister was Jane, hands down.


	31. An update

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Folks, I am tired. This journey has led me to many new places! I know how the next chapter starts but need to outmaneuver a global pandemic like Olivia Nevrakis being able to ferociously slice her way through life. Picture that as we all wait.

Olivia Nevrakis looked out the window. She


End file.
